Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One of the short lines used on maps to shade or to indicate slopes and their degree and direction.
  • transitive verb To make hatching on (a map).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as hatching.
  • To cover with hatchings.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Fine Arts) A short line used in drawing and engraving, especially in shading and denoting different surfaces, as in map drawing. See hatching.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun cartography A line on a map indicating the steepness of a slope.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun shading consisting of multiple crossing lines

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French, from hacher, to crosshatch; see hatch.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French hachure ("crosshatching"), from hacher ("to hatch").

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Examples

  • Squiggled hachure began early and so did stepped triangles, waved lines, and free-standing figures.

    The Architecture of Pueblo Bonito : 1964

  • ` Chaco 'pottery or thought of as closely related to Chaco pottery "and, again, as though clarifying Morris," The so-called non-Chaco pottery of the Chaco period on the La Plata is clearly Mancos Black-on-white decorated with solid elements, lines and dots, and parallel stripes; the so-called Chaco-like is hachure-style Mancos "(ibid., p. 97).

    The Architecture of Pueblo Bonito : 1964

Comments

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  • "It was an extreme close-up of an extremely old man, the contours of his face clearly defined by line and shade, hachures on a topographic map."

    White Teeth by Zadie Smith, p 279 of the Vintage International paperback

    January 28, 2011