ETCH • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Etch

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

verb

Etch v. t. (past & past part. etched; pres. part. etching)

To produce, as figures or designs, on mental, glass, or the like, by means of lines or strokes eaten in or corroded by means of some strong acid. Note: The plate is first covered with varnish, or some other ground capable of resisting the acid, and this is then scored or scratched with a needle, or similar instrument, so as to form the drawing; the plate is then covered with acid, which corrodes the metal in the lines thus laid bare.

To subject to etching; to draw upon and bite with acid, as a plate of metal. "I was etching a plate at the beginning of 1875."

To sketch; to delineate. (R.) "There are many empty terms to be found in some learned writes, to which they had recourse to etch out their system."

See images of 'Etch'

Etymology of 'Etch'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Etch" Quotes from Famous Books

... moment of contemplation. Larger establishments, though they are rarely very large, are most often installed in a room longer than it is wide, having as many windows as possible at the street end and what we would call the bar at the other. It is a bar that always makes me regret I do not etch, with its pleasing curves, its high lights of brass and porcelain striking out of deep shadow, and ...

— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... none even of these men appear capable of producing a large plate. They have no knowledge of the means of rendering their lines vital or valuable; cross-hatching stands for everything; and inexcusably, for though we cannot expect every engraver to etch like Rembrandt or Albert Durer, or every wood-cutter to draw like Titian, at least something of the system and power of the grand works of those men might be preserved, and some mind and meaning stolen into the reticulation of the restless ...

— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... tried gilt glass to etch upon. This would be excellent, were it not most painful to the eyes. And more than two years ago, I prepared a negative by painting whites with water colour on transparent ...

— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various

... belong to the margins of lands, the space between the farms and the river, beyond the pastures, and where the marsh in flower becomes perilous footing for the cattle. They are the fringe of the low lands, the sign of streams. They grow tall between you and the near horizon of flat lands. They etch their sharp lines upon the sky; and near them grow flowers of stature, including the ...

— Essays • Alice Meynell

Words linked to "Etch" : corrode, artistic production, chip at, show, rust, stipple, scratch, art, dissolve