candling
- 1Present participle of candle.
The inspector is candling each egg before it goes into the carton.
Candling the sealed jars revealed tiny cracks in the glass.
Note
The -ing form often names a whole trade practice, not just an action in progress. As a gerund it covers three jobs: holding an egg to a bright light to watch the embryo grow, checking an envelope against a lamp, and, in pottery, drying greenware in a 200° Celsius kiln before firing. That last use involves no light at all, so context tells you which is meant. All three are transitive: you candle eggs, envelopes, greenware.
candling is a form of candle
candle, verb: To observe the growth of an embryo inside an egg by holding the egg before a bright light source. Full entry
- Spelling
- candle → candling: drop the e, add -ing
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