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
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
Poetry has no golden mean; mediocrity here is of another metal, which Voltaire, however, had skill enough to encrust and polish.
From Imaginary Conversations and Poems A Selection by Landor, Walter Savage
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.
