encrust
Americanverb (used with object)
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to cover or line with a crust or hard coating.
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to form into a crust.
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to deposit as a crust.
verb (used without object)
verb
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(tr) to cover or overlay with or as with a crust or hard coating
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to form or cause to form a crust or hard coating
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(tr) to decorate lavishly, as with jewels
Other Word Forms
- encrustant adjective
- encrustation noun
- nonencrusting adjective
Etymology
Origin of encrust
First recorded in 1635–45 for incrust and 1710–20 for encrust; from Old French encrouster, incrouster, from Latin incrustāre “to cover with a layer, rind, or crust; daub”; en- 1, crust
Explanation
When you encrust something, you coat it with a layer of some other material. You might encrust your homemade cheesecake bites in crushed cookie crumbs, for example. There are many ways to encrust various kinds of food, as when you encrust fish or chicken in breadcrumbs before baking it. A jeweler might encrust a ring in tiny diamonds, and the ocean's tide can encrust a dock with tiny snails or barnacles. The Latin root of encrust is incrustare, which, fittingly, means "to cover with crust."
Vocabulary lists containing encrust
"Be Prepared" by Vera Brosgol
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The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
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Pictures of Hollis Wood
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
McCrady’s, Langhorne recalls, might prepare a local fish but encrust it with lichens that he foraged.
From Washington Post • Jan. 11, 2023
Guests complain about their servants, encrust their manicures and teeth with diamonds and feed each other gold-flaked chocolate truffles.
From New York Times • Jul. 19, 2022
The nodules form on deep abyssal plains where sedimentation rates are low, allowing metal compounds dissolved in seawater to encrust a nucleus, like a shark tooth or a rock, over millions of years.
From Science Magazine • Mar. 14, 2019
With time, corals, sponges and other marine life encrust the concrete, and it becomes indistinguishable from the natural reefs.
From Slate • Aug. 5, 2016
What you want is not a fair chance, chances gleam in your future sky fairer than the endless myriads of stars that encrust with glittering splendor the evening heavens.
From Supreme Personality by Croft, Delmer Eugene
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
