ETCH • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Etch

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/ɛtʃ/ Listen

noun

Etch n. A variant of Eddish. (Obs.)

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."

Etch v. i. To practice etching; to make etchings.

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Etymology of 'Etch'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Etch" Quotes from Famous Books

... whose inner bottom, sketch'd In pride of chubby grace, Some rude engraver's hand had etch'd ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... botanical garden with the great Boerhaave, studied the microscope at Delft under Leuwenhoek, became intimate with the military engineer Coehorn, talked with Schynvoet of architecture, and learned to etch from Schonebeck. An impression of a plate made by him, of Christianity victorious over ...

— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... sunsets, the moonrises, by a most original kind of etching. Taking up a bit of stray notepaper, he would hold it over a lighted candle, moving the paper about gently till it was cloudily smoked over, and then utilizing the darker smears for clouds, shadows, water, or what not, would etch with a dry pen the forms of lights on cloud and palace, on bridge or gondola, on the vague and dreamy surface he had produced. My own passionate longing to see Venice dates from those delightful, well-remembered evenings ...

— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... ask what really does constitute the "Painter-Etcher" "all round," as Piker has it?—for, of these three gentlemen who have so markedly distinguished themselves in that character, two certainly are not painters—and one doesn't etch! ...

— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... man's kindly eye. The fruit minded us of sunlit vines, and the careless rapture of the South. To me the situation was one of rare charm. She ate daintily, and as we talked, I studied her face as if I would etch it ...

— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

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