smoother

Pluralsmoothers

1. 1
   adjective

   Comparative of smooth.

   Silk feels much smoother against the skin than wool.

   After sanding, the board was noticeably smoother than before.

   Note

   The -er here marks degree rather than a doer, and it carries every meaning of the base adjective: a smoother finish, a smoother handover, a smoother talker, where the last edges toward glib or suave. The noun with the identical spelling means a person or tool that smooths. Only the agent noun takes a plural, smoothers. The comparative never does.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A person or thing that smooths something, making a surface flat and even.

   The workshop relies on a heavy smoother to level the cast surfaces.

   As a smoother, she spent her days evening out the molded edges.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A hand plane set to cut very thin shavings, used to create a polished wood surface.

   After the jack plane, she reached for the smoother to finish the tabletop.

   A well-tuned smoother removes shavings thinner than paper.

   Note

   A woodworker's finishing tool, the shortest of the bench planes and the last to touch the board. Coarser planes such as the jack flatten the stock first. The smoother follows with its iron set to project only slightly, so it lifts shavings thin enough to leave the surface polished rather than merely flat.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An abrading wheel used in glass-cutting to polish the faces of grooves left by another, coarser wheel.

   After roughing the pattern, she pressed the glass to the smoother for a clear finish.

   The smoother polished away the dull surface inside every groove.

   Note

   Glass-cutting works in stages, and this wheel belongs to the later one. A coarser wheel incises the groove first and leaves its faces ground and matte. The smoother then follows with a finer abrasive and polishes those faces until the glass turns clear again. What sets it apart is its place in the sequence: it refines a cut that already exists rather than making one.

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