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
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
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
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.
