mezzotint
Americannoun
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a method of engraving on copper or steel by burnishing or scraping away a uniformly roughened surface.
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a print produced by this method.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a method of engraving a copper plate by scraping and burnishing the roughened surface
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a print made from a plate so treated
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mezzotint
First recorded in 1730–40, mezzotint is from the Italian word mezzotinto half-tint. See mezzo, tint
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.
The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were mezzotint and monetize.
From New York Times • Mar. 5, 2023
An eighteenth-century mezzotint of a bust of Galen, by John Faber after a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens.Credit:
From Nature • Aug. 19, 2018
The lovers shown in Martin Langford’s mezzotint, “Remote,” are kissing passionately — but the man’s main focus is on a TV remote he’s operating behind his lover’s back.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 6, 2017
Look at James's "Casting the Runes", in which an advertisement in an "electric tram" brings the first shudder, or how a doll's house, a mezzotint or hotel bedsheets can become eldritch.
From The Guardian • Nov. 7, 2012
A mezzotint of a physician, who attending a sick patient in bed is attacked by a group of Deaths bearing standards, inscribed “Despair,” “l’amour,” “omnia vincit amor,” and “luxury.”
From The Dance of Death Exhibited in Elegant Engravings on Wood with a Dissertation on the Several Representations of that Subject but More Particularly on Those Ascribed to Macaber and Hans Holbein by Douce, Francis
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.
