oak gall
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of oak gall
First recorded in 1760–70
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.
Without durable, waterproof oak gall ink — produced when wasps inject chemical irritants into trees — countless medieval and Renaissance manuscripts would have deteriorated into illegibility.
From New York Times • Aug. 15, 2019
Recent chemical analyses, however, concluded that the oak gall ink and the mineral and botanical pigments are consistent with medieval recipes, and Carbon-14 analysis has dated the parchment to between 1404 and 1438.
From Washington Post • Aug. 14, 2019
He had used just three colours, black, white and red, gum arabic earth pigments that he then went over in oak gall ink.
From The Guardian • May 27, 2017
But one night, coming weary from hunting and cold, he crept into a hollow oak gall to sleep.
From Hunting with the Bow and Arrow by Pope, Saxton
They say she has a face like a cankered oak gall or a rotten apple lying cracked on the ground among the wasps.
From Grisly Grisell by Yonge, Charlotte Mary
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.
