sighten
English
Etymology
From sight + -en.
Verb
sighten (third-person singular simple present sightens, present participle sightening, simple past and past participle sightened)
- (transitive, calico-printing) To add a fugitive colour to (a paste), to enable the printer to determine whether the figures are well-printed or not.
- 1830, Samuel Frederick Gray, The Chemistry of the Arts:
- The iron liquor should be sightened with logwood.
- 1849, Edward Andrew Parnell, Dyeing and Calico-printing, page 132:
- Annexed is a specimen of calico in this stage of the process, the mordant on which is red liquor, “sightened” with a little decoction of peach-wood or similar dye-stuff.
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Derived terms
- sightening