printing pressn.
/ˈprɪntɪŋ prɛs/, U.S. /ˈprɪn(t)ɪŋ ˌprɛs/ A mechanical device or a machine for printing, esp. on paper, from types, blocks, or plates. Cf. press n.1 3. Sometimes denoting a hand-operated press as opposed to a power-driven printing machine.
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society > communication > printing > printing machine or press > [noun]
print1499
press1535
stamp1548
printing press1553
printing machine1814
1553 Inventory in J. Moran Wynkyn de Worde (1960) 38 Quatuor les pryntyng presses.
1578 J. Lyly Euphves sig. A.iiij Printers and Taylors are bound chiefely to pray for Gentlemen, the one hath so many fantasies to print, the other such diuers fashions to make, that the pressing yron of the one is neuer out of the fyre, nor the printing presse of the other any tyme lyeth still.
1612 S. Sturtevant Metallica x. 76 A printing Presse hath his seuerall parts..as the screw, the nut, the pare-tree and the chase.
1655 N. Culpeper et al. tr. L. Rivière Pract. Physick Advt. At his Shop at the sign of the Printing-Press in Cornhil, neer the Exchange.
1723 B. Mandeville Fable Bees (ed. 2) i. 258 Would you..break down the Printing-Presses, melt the Founds, and burn all the Books in the Island?
1842 G. Barmby in Promethean Jan. 12/1 Since the discovery of the printing press..the mission of the editor has by degrees superseded that of the parson-priest.
1861 G. M. Musgrave By-roads in Picardy 127 It is only because chroniclers were scarce, and printing-presses unknown, in those times.
1891 R. Routledge Discov. & Inventions 19th Cent. (ed. 8) 527 The reader has been made acquainted with the steam printing-press.
1988 A. N. Wilson Tolstoy viii. 190 There was a secret printing press designed for propagating seditious literature.
2001 Frederick (Maryland) Post 29 May a12 The printing press was a gigantic factorylike machine about as big as a house.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1553