engrave
Americanverb (used with object)
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to chase (letters, designs, etc.) on a hard surface, as of metal, stone, or the end grain of wood.
She had the jeweler engrave her name on the back of the watch.
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to print from such a surface.
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to mark or ornament with incised letters, designs, etc..
He engraved the ring in a floral pattern.
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to impress deeply; infix.
That image is engraved on my mind.
verb
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to inscribe (a design, writing, etc) onto (a block, plate, or other surface used for printing) by carving, etching with acid, or other process
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to print (designs or characters) from a printing plate so made
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to fix deeply or permanently in the mind
Other Word Forms
- engravable adjective
- engraver noun
- reengrave verb (used with object)
- superengrave verb (used with object)
- underengraver noun
- unengraved adjective
- well-engraved adjective
Etymology
Origin of engrave
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.
“The Scarlet Letter” has engraved Nathaniel Hawthorne’s name into our national psyche as a critic of tyrannical small-town morality.
By spring, he was sending Maggie gifts again, like the engraved portrait of himself created for his upcoming book.
From Literature
An azure booth is flanked by an abstracted mermaid sculpture, and elsewhere howling wolves are engraved into the bar tops.
From Los Angeles Times
On a small mammoth carved from tusk, the researchers analysed carefully engraved rows of crosses and dots.
From BBC
Bellowing "Silence, everyone!" to terrified parliamentarians, the man with a bushy moustache and shiny tricorn quickly caught the public's attention in an image engraved on the nation's collective memory.
From Barron's
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.
