drypoint
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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drypoint
an engraving method in which the design to be printed is scratched directly into a copperplate with a sharply pointed instrument. Lines in a drypoint print are characterized by a soft fuzziness caused by ink printed from a burr, a rough ridge of metal thrown up on each side of the furrow of the drypoint line. The course of the line, however, is often abruptly angular when changing directions, because the metal of the plate continually resists the engraving point. Drypoint is most often used with other printmaking techniques. It can be used to give dark accents to a nearly completed etching, for example, or it can be used first to sketch in lightly on a copperplate the proposed design for a line engraving.
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| a chattering or flighty, light-headed person. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
