inking

Pluralinkings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of ink.

   The studio is inking a three-year contract with the director this week.

   When the diver came too close, the octopus started inking and darted behind a rock.

   Note

   Context decides which verb is at work in this form: a studio inking a contract is signing it, an artist inking a client is tattooing, and an octopus inking is squirting its dark cloud. After be it describes an action in progress; heading a phrase, it names the act as a gerund. Several uses settle into nouns of their own, such as an inker's work.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The work of an inker, the commercial artist who goes over penciled artwork in ink, as in comics.

   The penciler finished the pages on Friday, but the inking took another two weeks.

   Critics praised the graphic novel's moody inking, all heavy shadows and thick lines.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   An application of ink to a surface.

   The rubber stamp left only a faint mark, so she gave it a second inking.

   Uneven inking left some of the printed letters pale and blotchy.

   Note

   Printers count it when each pass matters: the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office in 1900 describes a rotary press that gives one design successive complete inkings, and a faint stamp gets a second inking. Used without a or a plural, it means the coverage as a whole, as in uneven inking that leaves letters pale.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The defensive release of ink by squid, cuttlefish and similar animals.

   The researchers filmed the squid's inking as a shark closed in.

   When camouflage fails, a cuttlefish may fall back on inking to escape.

   Note

   Each release can be counted, so biologists write of inkings in the plural: some cephalopods, Mark Carnall noted in 2017, react badly to their own inkings when kept in small containers or in the lab. The ink is rich in mucus and is said to interfere with fish gills, so the cloud may do more than hide the animal.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The entering of text or drawings into a computer, tablet or similar device with a stylus.

   The software update improves inking, so handwriting with the stylus no longer lags.

   Designers use inking to sketch ideas straight into their presentation slides.

Showing meanings only. Show all 5