printing

Etymology

It is a verbal noun formed from English print + -ing,^[2][3][4] recorded in Middle English as printing and prenting.^[5] The verb, prenten in Middle English, comes from the noun,^[4][6][2] although the OED thinks its typographical sense may partly be a shortening of imprint.^[2] The noun is from Anglo-Norman prente, and Old French preinte (“impression, mark”),^[2][4] the feminine past participle of preindre (“to press, stamp”) used as a noun,^[2][4][7] from Latin premō (“to press”),^[4][7] and Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to strike”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The making of an impression or indentation: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[2] Etymonline dates the noun to the late 14th century and gives both the making of impressions in a soft surface and writing or written characters.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word began with pressing a mark into something, a sense that lasted until 1627.^[2][4] When books came to be produced by press, Caxton's verb was still imprint, used in 1474, and print followed only at the beginning of the 16th century.^[7][4] The noun in the sense of mechanical printing on paper is recorded from 1509, in Watson's translation of Brant's Shyppe of Fooles.^[2] Printing for all the copies made at one time is dated very differently: the 1520s in Etymonline,^[4] the mid 16th century in the Shorter Oxford,^[3] and 1902 in the current OED.^[2] As the technique spread, the word was extended to patterns stamped on cloth and ceramics (about 1701),^[2] to photographs (1853),^[2][4] to fingerprints (1869)^[2] and to sound recording (1949), where it means the accidental transfer of a signal between layers of magnetic tape.^[2] Writing in separate letters that imitate type was called printing from the verb's sense of 1801.^[4][8]

Timeline

• before 1398 – the making of an impression or indentation (obsolete by 1627).^[2]
• 1509 – the transfer of characters on to paper by a mechanical process.^[2]
• 1520s – all the copies printed at one time.^[4] The current OED's first quotation for this sense is from 1902.^[2]
• 1580s – printing press, a machine for making impressions from an inked surface.^[4]
• 1700 – adjective, that prints.^[2]
• c. 1701 – the stamping of colour or designs on cloth or ceramics.^[2]
• 1853 – the making of a photographic print.^[2][4]
• 1869 – the taking of a person's fingerprints.^[2]
• 1949 – the accidental transfer of signals on magnetic tape.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The art, process or business of producing printed matter, as with type and a press: She learned printing at her uncle's shop.^[9][8][10]
2. The reproduction of an image from a printing surface on to paper, cloth or the like, by a transfer of ink.^[5][2]
3. Printed text.^[8][9]
4. All the copies of a book or other publication produced at one time; an impression: The novel is in its third printing.^[8][9][10]
5. Writing in which the letters are not joined, as in type.^[8][9]
6. The making of a photographic print from a negative.^[5][2]
7. The decoration of cloth or pottery with coloured designs.^[5][2]
8. (in the plural) Paper to be printed on.^[10]
9. The taking of fingerprints.^[2]
10. (sound recording) The accidental transfer of signals between layers of magnetic tape.^[2]

Adjective

1. That prints.^[2]

Word family

• nonprinting
• contact printing
• offset printing
• printing frame
• printing ink
• printing press
• relief printing
• printing paper

Related words

• print
• imprint
• press

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 r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster