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.
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
In the painting he gave her a madly un-Quakerish gown copied, right down to the rose in the décolletage, from a mezzotint print of an aristocratic portrait by Joshua Reynolds.
From New York Times • Jan. 16, 2012
Of these four varieties of engraving—line-engraving, etching, mezzotint or wood-engraving—the woodcut is historically the earliest.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" by Various
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.
