engrave

Etymology

It is formed from English en- + grave,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} on the model of French engraver, a verb in use from the 13th to the 17th century.^[2][7][8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com instead take it directly from Middle French engraver.^[9][10] The French verb is made up of en- and graver (“to engrave”), which is of Germanic origin;^[9][3] Barnhart says Frankish, and compares Middle Dutch grāven (“to dig”).^[3] The base verb is from Old English grafan (“to dig; to engrave, carve”),^[11] akin to Old High German graban (“to dig”).^[9] The past participle engraven, now somewhat archaic or formal, follows the inflection of the base verb.^[2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To impress deeply, to fix in the mind: 1509, in Stephen Hawes's Pastime of Pleasure,^[2] a date Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also give for the word, though Merriam-Webster attaches it to the literal sense.^[3][9] The word is implied earlier in ingraved, before 1475 in Barnhart^[3] and the mid-15th century in Etymonline.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The literal uses are recorded after the figurative one in the OED: to sculpture or portray in sculpture (1542–1616), and to carve an inscription or figures on a surface (from before 1522).^[2] The Shorter Oxford, however, dates the sense of inscribing or ornamenting a hard surface to the late 15th century.^[5] The sense now most familiar, representing a picture by lines cut in a metal plate so that it can be printed, belongs to the 17th century: the OED's first record is from John Evelyn in 1667,^[2] Hoad also dates it to the 17th century,^[6] and Weekley says the modern sense dates from then.^[12] Johnson (1755) defined the word as to picture by incisions in any matter.^[13]

Timeline

• before 1475 – implied in the form ingraved.^[3]
• 1509 – to impress deeply, to fix indelibly, in Hawes.^[2][3]
• before 1522 – to carve an inscription or figures on a surface.^[2]
• 1542 – to sculpture (obsolete by 1616).^[2]
• 1578 – to make wounds or cavities by incision (obsolete by 1626).^[2]
• 1661 – to mark or ornament with incised marks.^[2]
• 1667 – to represent a figure or landscape by lines cut in metal plates, for printing.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut letters, figures or designs into a hard surface such as stone, metal or wood: The jeweller engraved her initials on the locket.^[9][8][2]
2. To cut into a surface in order to inscribe or decorate it.^[9][2]
3. To cut a design into a block or plate used for printing, by carving, etching or another process.^[8][2]
4. To print designs or characters from a plate made in this way.^[8]
5. To fix deeply or permanently in the mind: The sight of the burning bridge was engraved on his memory.^[8][9][2]
6. (obsolete, 1542–1616) To carve or sculpture.^[2][6]

Word family

• engraver
• engravable
• photoengrave
• reengrave

Related words

• grave

Usage notes

A verb engrave, also ingrave, meaning to put in a grave, to entomb or bury, was in use from the mid-16th to the late 17th century; it is formed from the prefix and the noun or verb grave.^[5] Trench notes that the word has lost this sense, quoting Spenser's Fairy Queen: So both agree their bodies to engrave.^[14]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker