engrave
verb (used with object)
to chase (letters, designs, etc.) on a hard surface, as of metal, stone, or the end grain of wood.
were engraving
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past progressiveof engrave.past progressive
Used to describe an ongoing action or continuous state that was happening at a specific time in the past.
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.
He stood on the shore, listening to the grinding, swaying sound of the skates, and watching the growing complexity of the curves they were engraving on the ice.
From An Unsocial Socialist by Bernard Shaw
The slight sounds and the aspects of the night seemed to them particular and, in spite of them, were engraving themselves forever in their memory.
From Ramuntcho by Pierre Loti
And again and again I have to recommend you to draw always as if you were engraving, and as if the line could not be changed.
From Lectures on Landscape Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 by John Ruskin
My fair writing is a proof of my lameness: I labour as if I were engraving; and drop no words, as I do in my ordinary hasty scribbling.
From The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford β Volume 4 by Horace Walpole
I ought to speak, I shall speak, as if I were engraving history for posterity!
From The Sword of Honor, volumes 1 & 2 or The Foundation of the French Republic, A Tale of The French Revolution by Eug?ne Sue
