| 释义 |
▪ I. pencil, n.|ˈpɛnsɪl|
Forms: 4–7 pensel, 5–6 pencel, pinselle, 6 pencille, -ile, pensyle, pincel, pynsil, -ell, pinicill, 6–7 pensil, -ill, -ell, pencill, -ell, 7 pensal, -ile, 7– pencil, Sc. pincel.
[ME. a. OF. pincel (13th c. in Littré), mod.F. pinceau = Pr. pinzel, Sp. pincel:—pop.L. *pēnicellum, for cl. L. pēnicillum paint-brush, pencil, dim. of pēniculus brush, dim. of pēnis tail.]
I.
1. a. An artist's paint-brush of camel's hair, fitch, sable, or other fine hair, gathered into a quill; esp. one of small and fine make, suitable for delicate work. Now arch. † Formerly also applied to a large brush, e.g. for spreading varnish, etc. over a surface (obs.).
c1420Pallad. on Husb. v. 157 Taak rubryk poured in sum litel shelle, And therwithal the baak of euery bee A pensel touche as they drynke at the welle, And note hem after whiderward they fle. c1440Promp. Parv. 391/2 Pencel, for portrayynge, peniculus. 1483Cath. Angl. 280/2 A Pinselle, pinsella. 1534More Treat. Passion Wks. 1297/2 We shoulde with a bundel of humility, as it were with a paynters pensell, dypped in the redde bloude of Christe, marke oure selfe on euerye syde. 1562Turner Herbal ii. 88 The leues [of the Pine tree] grow in tuftes together, not vnlyke vnto..som great pinselles that paynters vse. 1591R. Fitch in Hakluyt's Voy. (1599) II. i. 263 All the Chineans, Iaponians, and Cauchin Chineans do write right downwards, and they do write with a fine pensill made of dogs or cats haire. 1605Plat Delightes for Ladies xxxviii, Laye..some gumme..with a pensill upon your past[e]. 1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 535 Plaisterers Pencils, wherewithal they rub wals. 1672Salmon Polygraph. iii. i. 165 Pensils are of all bignesses, from a pin to the bigness of a finger, called by several names, as Ducks quill fitched and pointed..Jewelling pensils and bristle Pensils. 1717Lady M. W. Montagu Let. to Abbé Conti 29 May, The walls almost covered with little distiches of Turkish verse, written with pencils. 1826Kirby & Sp. Entomol. l. (1828) IV. 542 With a camel's hair pencil take them out of the water. 1842Tennyson Gardener's Dau. 26. 1859 Gullick & Timbs Paint. 295 The smaller kinds of brushes are still sometimes termed ‘pencils’; but the use of the word ‘pencil’ instead of ‘brush’ as distinctive of and peculiar to water-colour painting, has become obsolete.
b. As the instrument of art in painting, put for the painter's art, skill, or style; and transferred to word-painting or descriptive skill. Cf. brush n.2 2 b.
c1386Chaucer Knt.'s T. 1190 With soutil pencel [v. rr. pensel, -ell] was depeynted this storie. c1600Shakes. Sonn. ci, Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd; Beauty no pencil. 1601Holland Pliny xxxv. ix. 534 He and none before him brought the pencill into a glorious name and especiall credit. a1649Drummond of Hawthornden Poems Wks. (1711) 1 Of my rude pensil look not for such art. 1752Gray Bentley 4 Bentley..bids the pencil answer to the lyre. 1797Godwin Enquirer i. vi. 41 The rich and solemn pencil of Tacitus. 1837W. Irving Capt. Bonneville II. xvi. 274 The grandeur..of the views..beggar[s] both the pencil and the pen. 1837–9Hallam Hist. Lit. iii. vii. §31 His descriptions are vivid..; his characters are drawn with a strong pencil.
c. fig.
1581G. Pettie tr. Guazzo's Civ. Conv. iii. (1586) 156 b, By the pensill of your iudgement to draw foorth those parts out of euerie of those customes. 1595Shakes. John iii. i. 237 They were besmear'd and ouer-staind With slaughters pencill. 1655tr. Com. Hist. Francion iv. 6 Apelles did never paint a Man better than I did set forth my Master by the pensil of my Eloquence. 1755Gray Progr. Poesy iii. i, This pencil take..whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year. 1837Disraeli Venetia iii. iv, Tinted by the golden pencil of autumn.
2. a. An instrument for marking, drawing, or writing, formed of some solid substance which leaves a coloured mark upon a surface over which it is drawn; formed of such materials as black-lead, white or coloured chalk, charcoal, soft slate, aniline, etc., and having a tapering point for its application to the surface; spec. a thin cylinder or strip of such substance enclosed in a cylinder of soft wood, or in a metal case with a tapering end; usually, when not otherwise expressed, applied to one of black-lead (plumbago or graphite) so prepared. (Now the prevailing sense.)
in pencil, in pencilled writing (cf. in ink). knight of the pencil, one whose business is done with a pencil; in racing slang, a bookmaker.
1612Brinsley Lud. Lit. v. 47 Note them with a pensil of black lead. 1683Pettus Fleta Min., Ess. Words Met. s.v., Black Lead..of late..is curiously formed into cases of Deal or Cedar, and so sold as dry Pencils. 1708Lond. Gaz. No. 4404/3 Lost.., a Pocket-Book.., with a Silver Clasp, and Wooden Pencil, tip'd with Silver at both ends. 1799Hull Advertiser 23 Mar. 2/3 Velvet Writing Paper, and Metallic Pencils. 1842Abdy Water Cure (1843) 52 He gave me his card, with a few words in pencil, for Priessnitz. 1880Print. Trades Jrnl. xxxi. 24 Conrade Gesner..in 1565, says that people had pencils for writing consisting of a wooden handle with a piece of lead. 1885Punch 7 Mar. 109/1 The Knights of the Pencil, Sir, hold that backers, like pike, are more ravenous in keen weather. 1890Cent. Dict., Metallic pencil, a pencil made of an alloy of tin, lead, and bismuth. The paper to be written on with it is prepared with bone-ash.
b. In Scotl. and north of Engl. spec. = Slate-pencil. Hence, a fine clay-slate or other laminated shale, of which slate-pencils are made.
1878Borings I. 264 (E.D.D.). 1894Northumbld. Gloss., Pencil, shale, or ‘plate’ of a somewhat compact nature, used for coarse slate pencils.
c. A kind of crayon or pencil-like stick of colouring matter, for tinting the eye-brows, eyelashes, or lips, for theatrical or cosmetic purposes (eyebrow-pencil, lip pencil, etc.).
d. to have the pencil put on one (Criminals' slang), to be reported to the prison authorities.
1929Sat. Even. Post 13 Apr. 50/3 A prisoner who is reported for some violation is written up or had the pencil put on him. 1934H. N. Rose Thes. Slang 34/2 Reported for Violation of Rules..to be written up; have the pencil put on; have the number taken.
II.
3. A small tuft of hairs, bristles, feathers, or the like, springing from or close to a point on a surface. Now only in Nat. Hist.
1599B. Jonson Cynthia's Rev. iv. i, Sir, you with the pencil on your chin. 1776Withering Brit. Plants (1796) IV. 267 Pileus bright bay, set with dark triangular pencils of hair. 1870Hooker Stud. Flora 224 Campanulaceæ... Anthers naked or tipped with a pencil of hairs.
4. a. A beam of radiation converging to or diverging from a single point, or such number of them as may fall upon any surface or be considered collectively.
1673Gregory in Rigaud Corr. Sci. Men (1841) II. 253 Pencils of the same angles are more truly reflected by a concave than refracted by a lens. 1705C. Purshall Mech. Macrocosm 255 'Tis possible for any..Pencil of Rays to be so Refracted by a Concave Glass, that..they shall proceed from it in Parallel Lines. c1790J. Imison Sch. Art I. 95 Pencil, the appearance of electric light issuing from the point of a body electrified positively. 1837Goring & Pritchard Microgr. 180 The extreme or marginal rays of the pencil will undergo greater refraction than those..nearly coinciding with the axis of the pencil. 1879Rutley Study Rocks ix. 80 A convergent pencil of polarised light. 1913Phil. Mag. XXV. 604 A narrow pencil of α particles fell on a zinc sulphide screen. 1938R. W. Lawson tr. Hevesy & Paneth's Man. Radioactivity (ed. 2) 291 With this apparatus pencils of many micro-amperes of deuterons..have been obtained. 1967Listener 30 Mar. 429/3 The picture is positioned, and a tiny pencil of X-rays is emitted at the spot where we want to analyse a pigment.
b. optic pencil, the rays that pass from any point through the crystalline lens, and are again brought to a focus on the retina, thus forming a double cone with the crystalline as common base.
1704J. Norris Ideal World ii. vii. 360 Called the optick pencil, as being the instrument whereby the pictures or images of things are delineated to the eye. 1727–41in Chambers Cycl. s.v. Optic. 1786 W. Herschel in Phil. Trans. LXXVI. 500 That Indistinctness of Vision which has been ascribed to the smallness of the Optic Pencil. 1819in Pantologia.
5. Geom. The figure formed by a set of straight lines meeting in a point. Also extended to a set of curves of a given order, passing through a number of points corresponding to such order; and to a set of planes or curved surfaces passing through one line or curve.
1840Penny Cycl. XVII. 402/1 A pencil of lines is a number of lines which meet in one point. 1859Cayley Coll. Math. Papers II. 577 A system of points in a line is said to be a range, and a system of lines through a point is said to be a pencil. 1865Ibid. V. 484 (title) On the intersections of a pencil of four lines by a pencil of two lines. 1890Cent. Dict. s.v., Axial pencil,..the figure formed by a number of planes passing through a given line, which is called the basis or axis of the axial pencil.
6. Applied to objects resembling a pencil in shape.
a. (More fully pencil diamond.) A glazier's diamond; = diamond n. 4. rare.
1837Penny Cycl. VIII. 475/1 The pencil diamond used by glaziers to cut glass with is a small fractured piece of diamond..of a trapezoidal shape, weighing about the 60th part of a carat, and set in a wooden handle... Two pencil diamonds are now in use, the old and the new or patent pencil.
b. A belemnite. rare.
1843W. Humble Dict. Geol. & Min., Pencil, a name given to the belemnite.
c. A small medicated bougie.
1890in Webster.
d. The penis. slang.
1937Partridge Dict. Slang 616/2 Pencil, the male member. 1942Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §121/39 Male pudendum..pencil, pencil and tassel. 1967D. Francis Blood Sport v. 58 That Purple Emperor strain is as soft as an old man's pencil.
e. Phr. lead in one's pencil: see lead n.1 3.
III. 7. a. attrib. and Comb., as pencil-brush, pencil-clasp, † pencil-daubing; ‘made or written with a pencil’, as pencil-drawing, pencil-mark, pencil-note, pencil-sketch; objective and obj. gen., as pencil-maker, pencil-scrubber, pencil-seller, pencil-sharpening; pencil-selling adj.; instrumental, as pencil-mark n. and vb. (see also sense 7 b below), pencil-written adj.; similative, etc., as pencil formed, pencil-like, pencil-shaped, pencil-slim, pencil-thin adjs. Also with sense ‘resembling a pencil in shape’, as pencil flash(light), pencil microphone, pencil pants, pencil skirt, pencil stripe, pencil torch.
1822–34Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 67 To apply it with a *pencil-brush to the gums.
1875Knight Dict. Mech., *Pencil-clasp, a device to hold a pencil to the lappel or breast of the coat.
1873E. Spon Workshop Receipts Ser. i. 4/1 The whole of the *pencil-construction should be most accurately made in the finest faint lines with a hard pencil.
1654Whitlock Zootomia 491 No such harsh Noise, as hobling Musick, or such an offensive Sight as *Pencill-dawbing.
1929‘E. Queen’ Roman Hat Mystery iv. xxii. 307 Barry examined them..by the same *pencil flashlight—a tiny streak of illumination. 1935R. Chandler in Black Mask Jan. 15/1, I tried throwing the beam of my pencil flash along the floor.
1830Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. 57 Stigmata..papulose or *pencil-formed.
1842Dunglison Med. Lex., *Pencil-like [or] styloid processes. 1875Huxley & Martin Elem. Biol. (1877) 33 The outgrowth of pencil-like bunches of branches.
1875Knight Dict. Mech. 1658/2 The Florida cedar is used by all of the principal *pencil-makers in the world.
1824J. S. Mill in Westm. Rev. II. 399 Hume was not..without authority, for Mr. Brodie saw his *pencil marks opposite to this story, in the copy of Perinchief belonging to the Advocate's library. 1835J. Marcet Mary's Gram. 1 The pencil-marks on the page. 1855D. G. Rossetti Let. 25 June (1965) I. 257 Ruskin has been reading those translations since you, and says he could wish no better than to ink your pencil-marks as his criticisms. 1858W. Cory Lett. & Jrnls. (1897) 71 Such books as he must buy to pencil-mark for future reference.
1962A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio ii. 36 A ‘*pencil’ microphone just peeping out of a well in the centre of the table. 1973P. Evans Bodyguard Man xix. 120 Her right hand was..holding a pencil-microphone.
1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 305, I got a *pencil note, with my letter of introduction..delivered.
1960News Chron. 26 Sept. 9 This one is equally good with *pencil pants.
1774Foote Cozeners i. Wks. 1799 II. 152 That *pencil-selling, mongrel Manasses!
1776Withering Brit. Plants (1796) I. 310 Appendages to the keel (generally) 2 *pencil-shaped substances, with 3 divisions, fixed towards the end of the keel.
1901Harper's Mag. CII. 798/1, I think he considered my *pencil-sharpening a greater accomplishment.
1851Hawthorne Ho. Sev. Gables viii. (1852) 91 The *pencil-sketches that pass from hand to hand, behind the original's back.
1952C. W. Cunnington Eng. Women's Clothing ii. 245 Coatees... Worn with plain *pencil skirt. 1960[see kick-pleat s.v. kick n.1 8]. 1974P. Haines Tea at Gunter's ix. 96 She was wearing a pencil skirt so tight she could barely walk.
1949Women's Wear Daily 24 Jan. 6/5 Jacqueline Vienne features..long double-breasted jacket over *pencil slim skirts. 1976‘J. Ross’ I know what it's like to Die xxii. 144 A pencil-slim ochre-coloured cigar.
1897Sears, Roebuck Catal. 181/2 Boys' two-piece wash goods suit, made of heavy navy blue with *pencil stripe. 1960House & Garden June 21/1 (Advt.), Alternating bands of closely spaced pencil stripes. 1970New Yorker 17 Oct. 170 (Advt.), Pencil stripes, yes. Bankers pencil stripes, no.
1962K. Orvis Damned & Destroyed i. 12 A..*pencil-thin Frenchman. 1963Times 25 Feb. (Canada Suppl.) p. vii/4 The huge, pencil-thin Great Lakes ships. 1978T. Gifford Glendower Legacy (1979) 298 He came down the stairs, Dapper and pencil-thin.
1937M. Allingham Dancers in Mourning iv. 59 He had a *pencil⁓torch in his pocket. 1948M. Gilbert They never looked Inside i. 7 A glow-worm came and went ten feet away, and Rod guessed that ‘Gunner’ was using his pencil-torch with discretion. 1964‘E. Peters’ Flight of Witch x. 166 One of those thin pencil-torches that clip in a breast pocket. 1976‘Z. Stone’ Modigliani Scandal iv. iv. 182 He..shone a pencil torch inside.
b. Special Comb.: pencil-arm, the arm of a pair of compasses that carries the pencil; pencil beam, a narrow, nearly parallel beam; spec. in Radar, one which in addition has an approximately circular cross-section; pencil beard (see quot.); pencil-blue, a particular shade of blue obtained from indigo, formerly used in calico-printing, for painting in parts of a design; pencil box, a box for holding pencils; pencil cedar, a name given to several species of juniper, esp. Juniperus virginiana, the wood of which is used for the casing of lead-pencils; also, any of several Australian trees resembling these kinds of juniper or yielding wood suitable for making pencils; pencil-compass, a pair of compasses, one leg of which bears a pencil; pencil diamond: see sense 6 a; pencil fever: see quot. 1873; pencil flower, a name for the genus Stylosanthes of leguminous plants (Treas. Bot. 1866); pencil knife, a knife for sharpening pencils; pencil-lead (see lead n.1 3), black-lead or graphite as used for making pencils; a slender stick of this for fitting into a metallic pencil-case or an ever-pointed pencil; pencil-line, a line drawn with a pencil or resembling one so drawn; also attrib., esp. in pencil-line moustache (see quot. 1966); † pencil man, a man of the ‘pencil’ or brush, an artist; pencil mark = pencilling vbl. n. 1; pencil moustache = pencil-line moustache above; pencil-piece, a piece of pencil-lead of proper length for making a pencil; pencil pusher U.S., a derogatory term for one whose occupation involves much writing with a pencil; pencil-sharpener, an instrument for sharpening a black-lead or slate pencil by pushing or rotating it against a cutting edge; pencil-stone, the mineral pyrophyllite; pencil tablet, a notebook of rough paper suitable for writing in pencil but not in pen; pencil-tree, the groundsel-tree (Baccharis halimifolia); pencil-vase, a vase in which the pencils or brushes, used by the Chinese and Japanese for writing, stand upright; pencil-wood, the wood of the pencil cedar.
1892E. Rowe Hints on Chip-Carving i. 9 Do not use the left hand to move the *pencil-arm of the compasses. 1946Jrnl. Inst. Electr. Engin. XCIII. iiia. 25/2 A Yagi aerial..presents the possibility of obtaining a ‘*pencil’ beam of radiation, narrow in two perpendicular planes, from an end-fire array of comparatively small dimensions. 1955Sci. Amer. Mar. 38/1 This antenna has a pencil beam which at a wavelength of 65 centimeters is five degrees wide. 1965A. Nicol Truly Married Woman 98 Bradshaw..turned quickly down the road, his headlights two pencil beams in the darkness.
1966J. S. Cox Illustr. Dict. Hairdressing 110/1 *Pencil beard, a narrow strip of beard from the lower lip to the chin.
1860O'Neill Calico Printing 337 *Pencil Blue..receives its name from the manner in which it was applied to the cloth, viz., by means of a fibrous matter like an artist's pencil... Pencil blue consists of indigo in the deoxidised and dissolved state.
1907Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 132/2 *Pencil Box..9 by 2½ in., 1/0. 1912‘C. F. Benton’ Fairs & Fetes 118 School-supplies also may find a place here—slates and pencils..pencil-boxes and rulers. 1935‘R. Crompton’ William—the Detective xi. 235 Ties an' books an' pencil boxes. 1969E. H. Pinto Treen 422 The Bavarian manufacturers of children's pencil boxes certainly knew how to bring joy to the hearts of late-Victorian and Edwardian school boys and girls. 1977D. Clark Gimmel Flask vii. 134 Remember the old pencil-boxes with sliding lids and sections inside?
1825Gentl. Mag. XCV. i. 318 The *pencil, a juniper cedar, is scarce here; it grows much like the fir-tree in every respect. 1866Treas. Bot. 642/1 Juniperus bermudiana, Pencil Cedar; J. virginiana, Red Cedar. 1882Encycl. Brit. XIV. 197/2 The trees [of Ladak] are the pencil cedar (Juniperus excelsa), the poplar and willow [etc.]. 1884A. Nilson Timber Trees New South Wales 53 D[ysoxylon] Muelleri.—Pencil Cedar... D. rufum.—Bastard Pencil Cedar. Ibid. 110 P[odocarpus] elata.—Colonial Deal; White Pine; Pencil Cedar. 1908E. J. Banfield Confessions of Beachcomber i. v. 184 A huge log of pencil cedar had been cast among the boulders. 1932R. H. Anderson Trees New South Wales 89 Bermuda Pencil Cedar..often makes a fine tree. Ibid. 143 Red Bean (Dysoxylum Muelleri)..is also sometimes known as ‘Pencil Cedar’. 1965Austral. Encycl. I. 222/1 Tieghemopanax elegans (syn. Panax elegans), the black pencil cedar, is an ornamental tree with large, divided leaves, and a soft, light wood. Ibid. VII. 106/1 Glochidion Ferdinandii (variously known as white beech, pencil cedar, rain tree and ‘towwar’)..is a medium-sized, rain-forest tree. 1968W. E. Willis Timber i. 6 Virginian Pencil Cedar is a species of Juniper and a favourite wood for the manufacture of pencils.
1875Knight Dict. Mech. 1659/2 *Pencil-compass, one having a pencil-end at one leg; or a compass to which an ordinary pencil may be attached.
1873Slang Dict., *Pencil-fever, a suppositious disease among racehorses..sets in when, despite the efforts of the ‘marketeers’, a horse can no longer be kept at a short price in the lists, through his actual condition being discovered, and when every layer of odds is anxious to write his name down. 1883B'ham Weekly Post 18 Aug. 8/5 Among the latest victims of ‘pencil’ fever is Elzevir, who has been doing so badly of late that the horse-watchers advise their clients to have nothing to do with him.
1817A. Eaton Man. Bot. 85 Stylosanthes{ddd}elatior (*pencil-flower). 1901C. T. Mohr Plant Life Alabama 570 Stylosanthes... Pencil flower.
1926E. O'Neill Great God Brown iii. iii. 81 Waving his *pencil knife with grotesque flourishes.
1875Knight Dict. Mech. 1658/2 The *pencil-leads as sold by stationers and jewelers for pencil-cases and ever⁓point pencils are little cylinders made of graphite and clay kneaded with water until it assumes the consistency of putty.
1905N.E.D. s.v. pencil sb. 7 a *Pencil-line. 1957R. Hoggart Uses of Literacy ix. 235 A neat moustache in dark thin pencil line. 1966J. S. Cox Illustr. Dict. Hairdressing 110/1 Pencil Line Moustache. (1) A moustache consisting of a very thin line of hairs... (2) A thin line moustache drawn on the upper lip with a coloured cosmetic. 1968R. C. Galway Assignment Gaolbreak ix. 88 He had..a vicious-looking pencil-line moustache. 1971B. Malamud Tenants 98 Jacob..had uneasy eyes and a pencil-line mustache. 1976New Yorker 15 Nov. 23/2 Greta Garbo, with pencil-line eyebrows above sex-drugged lids, plays a bored, sensual, wicked woman.
1589Lodge Scillaes Metam. etc. (Hunter. Cl.) 33. The *pencile man that with a careles hand Hath shaddowed Venus. 1710Shaftesbury Charact., Adv. to Author i. §3 As in our real portraitures, particularly those at full length, where the poor pencil-man is put to a thousand shifts, whilst he strives to dress us in affected habits, such as we never wore.
1880H. Dalziel Brit. Dogs ii. 332 Feet tanned, but the knuckles with a clear black line, called the ‘*pencil mark’, up the ridge. 1931A. C. Smith About our Dogs xvi. 245 The standard of the Black-and-Tan Terrier Club:..the forelegs tanned up to the knees, with black lines (pencil marks) up each toe.
1961W. Brown Bedeviled 77 He was a tall, thin youth with slicked-down, black hair, a *pencil moustache and shaggy sideburns. 1965P. Robinson Pakistani Agent ii. 8 Parulekar was..in his late twenties, with a pencil moustache. 1973H. Gilbert Hotels with Empty Rooms xv. 128 A cinematographical convention, like crooks with pencil-moustaches.
1839Ure Dict. Arts 947 The ends of the *pencil-pieces become dry first, and by their contraction in volume get loose in the grooves.
1881Harvard Lampoon 20 Apr. 42/2 After various chilling repulses, our *pencil-pusher discovered a man smaller than himself. 1917F. D. O'Sullivan Enemies of Underworld xcvi. 666/1 Pencil pusher, clerk. 1926Maines & Grant Wise-Crack Dict. 12/2 Pencil-pusher, office employe. 1952in Wentworth & Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang (1960) 382/1 The number of pencil pushers and typists has increased in the past 25 years out of proportion to the increase in factory workers. 1959Amer. Speech XXXIV. 79 Pencil pusher, a camp book-keeper. 1961B. James Night of Kill ix. 120 He'd be damned if he was going to be a mid-watch pencil-pusher just to please his ulcerated pro-tem captain.
1875Knight Dict. Mech. 1659/2 *Pencil-sharpener, a device against which a lead or a slate pencil is drawn or rotated in order to sharpen the point.
1886Cassell's Encyl. Dict., *Pencil-stone. 1896Chester Dict. Names Min., Pencil-stone, a popular name for pyrophyllite, because slate pencils are made from it.
1895Montgomery Ward Catal. Spring & Summer (Index), *Pencil Tablets. 1944T. D. Clark Pills, Petticoats & Plows 45 Across the way there was an assortment of school-books, pencil tablets,..and epsom salts.
1884Miller Plant-n., *Pencil-tree. 1890Cent. Dict., Pencil-tree,..so named from the long brush of pappus borne by the fruiting head.
1859Dickinson Song Sol. i. 17 (E.D.D.) T' main timmers of our house is *pencil wood.
Hence (nonce-wds.) ˈpencillous a., of the form of a pencil; ˈpencilly a., like or of the nature of a pencil or pencilling; † ˈpencilry, pencil-work.
1620Middleton & Rowley World Tost at Tennis 345, I [Time] cannot set impression on their [women's] cheeks..But 'tis wip'd off with gloss and pencilry. 1839Bailey Festus xviii. (1848) 174 Oh! gaze on her ringlets of raven-black hair, And her delicate eyebrow's soft pencilly line. 1857Bullock Cazeaux' Midwif. 70 The little vessels..subdivide into very delicate ramuscules, assuming a pencillous arrangement.
▪ II. pencil, v.|ˈpɛnsɪl|
[f. prec. n.]
1. a. trans. To paint with a ‘pencil’ or brush (obs. or arch.); now, usually, to colour, tint, or mark with or as with a black-lead pencil. Also fig.
c1532in E. Law Hampton Crt. Pal. I. 364 Redd ocker for pensellyng of the new tennys play. 1641Milton Ch. Govt. ii. Pref., Time enough to pencill it over with all the curious touches of art. 1854J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) I. xxxviii. 586 The sun..pencils with beauty the violet and the rose. 1863Sir J. B. Burke Viciss. Fam. Ser. iii. 290 Trial and hardship had pencilled their features with the lines of care. 1902E. Banks Newspaper Girl 242 The editor continued blue-pencilling other pages.
b. To depict or represent with the pencil or brush; † transf. to depict or paint in words (obs.); also (in later use), to outline, sketch, or delineate, in pencil. Also fig.
1610Holland Camden's Brit. i. 631 Lanthony..the situation of which Abbay Giraldus Cambrensis..shall pensile it out unto you for mee. 1621T. Williamson tr. Goulart's Wise Vieillard 98 Horace in his art of Poetrie doth pensill and picture out an old man in this manner. 1631Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 372 These words thereupon being most artificially pensild. 1644[H. Parker] Jus Pop. 49 The Scripture pensils the great Monarchies under the lineaments of Lions. 1768–74Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) I. 78 Some..very learnedly insist that the image penciled on the backside of our eye..is the object we behold. 1774M. Mackenzie Marit. Surv. 74 Then sketch the Curvature between C and B, and pencil it. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xv, Shaded towers and sunlit pyramids of ice penciled their fantastic outlines against the sky. 1873E. Spon Workshop Receipts Ser. i. 3/2 Drawings are first pencilled and then inked.
2. a. To write or jot down with a pencil.
1760–72H. Brooke Fool of Qual. (1809) III. 25, I have..pencilled, for your use, an abstract. 1825Coleridge Aids Refl. (1848) I. 124 The first marginal note I had pencilled on Leighton's pages. 1861Wilson & Geikie Mem. E. Forbes xii. 427 He would..pencil down in verse the ideas as they rose in his mind.
b. To enter (a horse's name) in a betting book.
1871‘M. Legrand’ Cambr. Freshm. 35 ‘Well, then, I've been told of an outsider’, mentioning an animal whose name he had not had the pleasure of pencilling.
c. to pencil in (fig.), to note, register, or arrange provisionally or tentatively.
1942Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §628/5 Be penciled in, to be tentatively, but not finally hired. 1959Times 22 June 4/2 He is a name to pencil in for the future. 1967Punch 31 May 783/1 We may have pencilled in an arrangement to throw open our houses to one another, I'm not sure. 1971Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves xii. 128 You and I, regarding Florence coolly, pencil her in as too bossy for human consumption. 1977Daily Mirror 10 May 31/1 The MCC team to play Australia at Lord's from May 25–27, due to be announced later this week and traditionally a Test trial, might still be very different to the one originally pencilled in.
3. intr. To form into pencils (of light).
a1774Goldsm. Surv. Exp. Philos. (1776) II. 293 Every visible point..may be considered as a candle sending forth its ray, which splits and pencils out into several other rays before it arrives at the eye.
4. trans. To treat or ‘paint’ (a wound, etc.) with something applied with a fine brush.
1822–34Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) III. 268 Penciling the wound with lunar caustic. 1843R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. xxvi. 331 Pencilled over with Plenk's liniment. 1876tr. H. von Ziemssen's Cycl. Med. IV. 80 The Application of Fluids [to the Larynx] (a) Pencilling.
▪ III. pencil
variant of pencel. |