candle

Pluralcandles

Formscandles, candling, candled

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A light made from a wick set in wax, tallow, paraffin, or another flammable solid.

   A single candle flickered on the windowsill all evening.

   The monks made candles from beeswax collected on the abbey grounds.

   Note

   The everyday sense, and the one that carries the word's history: Old English candel, borrowed from Latin candēla, from a verb meaning 'to be white, bright, shining'. Candid grows from the same root, and candela and chandelle are doublets, the same Latin word reaching English by other routes. The verbs that travel with it are light, blow out and snuff out.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To observe the growth of an embryo inside an egg by holding the egg before a bright light source.

   Hatchery workers candle every egg around day seven of incubation.

   After candling the batch, she set aside the infertile eggs.

   Note

   A working verb from embryology that takes the egg as its direct object. You candle an egg, and the procedure is called candling. The light shows the growing embryo through the shell. Its method is shared with checking an envelope against the light; what sets this sense apart is that its object and purpose are always biological.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To inspect something, such as an envelope, by holding it up to a light and looking through it.

   Mailroom clerks candle suspicious envelopes before opening them.

   She candled the old letter, hoping to make out the writing folded inside.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   In a filter, especially a water filter, the part that projects outward and can be taken out.

   Rinse the ceramic candle under running water before fitting it back into the filter housing.

   The purifier's candles should be replaced every six months.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A fast-growing, pale, upward-pointing shoot that appears on a pine tree in spring, darkening and becoming inconspicuous as growth slows in summer.

   Gardeners pinch back each candle in late spring to keep the pine compact.

   By July the candles had darkened and blended into the surrounding foliage.

   Note

   A forester's metaphor that names the shoot for how it looks in spring, pale and standing straight up like a lit taper. The image lasts only for the season. Once growth slows and the shoot darkens into the rest of the tree, nothing about it suggests a candle any more.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To dry greenware before the firing cycle by holding the kiln at a low temperature, around 200 degrees Celsius, until all water has been driven from the clay.

   We candle large sculptural pieces overnight before raising the kiln to firing temperature.

   She candled the mugs for several hours because the clay still felt damp.

   Note

   A potter's term in which no light is involved at all. Candling is a slow, low-heat stage, held around 200 °C, and its object is greenware, meaning clay that has not yet been fired. Potters candle pieces before the firing cycle proper, which begins only once the water has gone.

7. 7
   nounidiomatic

   A notional scale of Anglican ritual practice; position on the candle indicates how high church or low church a parish or service is.

   St. Mark's sits fairly high up the candle, complete with incense, chasubles, and sung Mass.

   The new vicar nudged the parish a little further up the candle each year.

   Note

   An Anglican idiom that always moves vertically. Clergy are higher up the candle, a vicar creeps up the candle, and the devout sit towards the top of the candle. Up means more ceremony: Church Times links the upper reaches with Anglo-Papalism and Roman fashions in dress. Kelvin Holdsworth stretches the image to churches a mile high up the paschal candle.

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