Intaglio

//ɪnˈtæl.i.(j)oʊ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A design or piece of art which is engraved or etched into something. countable, uncountable

    "On a wooden pub sign daringly taken, one daylight raid, by a drunken Bartley Gobbitch, across which still survives in intaglio the legend SNIPE AND SHAFT, Teddy Bloat is mincing bananas with a great isosceles knife."

  2. 2
    glyptic art consisting of a sunken or depressed engraving or carving on a stone or gem (as opposed to cameo) wordnet
  3. 3
    Any printing method in which the ink is laid upon the sunken parts of the printing form. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    a printing process that uses an etched or engraved plate; the plate is smeared with ink and wiped clean, then the ink left in the recesses makes the print wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To engrave or etch using intaglio.

Example

More examples

"On a wooden pub sign daringly taken, one daylight raid, by a drunken Bartley Gobbitch, across which still survives in intaglio the legend SNIPE AND SHAFT, Teddy Bloat is mincing bananas with a great isosceles knife."

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian intaglio, from intagliare (“to engrave”).

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.