Intaglio
//ɪnˈtæl.i.(j)oʊ// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 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 glyptic art consisting of a sunken or depressed engraving or carving on a stone or gem (as opposed to cameo) wordnet
- 3 Any printing method in which the ink is laid upon the sunken parts of the printing form. countable, uncountable
- 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 To engrave or etch using intaglio.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
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
More for "intaglio"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.