engraving
part of speech
noun (an engraving, engravings; engraving — the craft, uncountable); verb form of engrave (engrave, engraves, engraved, engraving)
meaning for a pupil
1) A picture made by cutting lines into a metal plate or block of wood, then covering it with ink and pressing paper onto it to print the picture. tree →
2) Words, names or patterns cut into a hard surface such as metal, glass, stone or wood. tree →
3) The art or job of cutting designs into hard surfaces. tree →
4) The act of cutting a design into something (part of the verb «engrave»: «She is engraving a name on the cup»). tree →
sense in the lessons
In history and art lessons old books and newspapers were often illustrated with engravings, because before photographs could be printed, engraving was a way to copy the same picture many times. Banknotes and stamps are still made with very fine engravings that are hard to copy. In everyday life you see engraving on trophies, medals, rings, watches and gravestones, where names and dates are cut into the metal or stone. In stories an engraving on a ring or a sword can be a clue. Phrases: «an engraving of», «the engraving on the trophy», «wood engraving».
examples
- The old book had an engraving of a sailing ship on every page. tree →
- The engraving on the cup says «Champions». tree →
- Gran's ring has tiny engraving inside it. tree →
- Thomas Bewick made famous wood engravings of birds. tree →
- The man in the shop is engraving my name on the medal. tree →
- Banknotes have fine engravings to stop people copying them. tree →
- The engraving on the old gravestone was worn and hard to read. tree →
- In art we tried a kind of engraving by scratching pictures into a foam tile and printing it. tree →
- There was once a king's son who had a larger and more beautiful collection of books than any one else in the world, and full of splendid copper-plate engravings. tree →
note
Countable when it means a picture or the words cut in («two engravings»); uncountable when it means the craft («she studies engraving»). It is also the «-ing» form of the verb «engrave», which needs an object: you engrave a name on (or into) something. Do not confuse it with «etching», a similar printmaking method that uses acid to bite the lines into the metal instead of cutting them by hand. Say: in-GRAY-ving.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «engraving» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.