Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Arch.) The first coating of plaster in work of three coats upon laths. Its surface is scratched once to form a better key for the next coat. In the United States called
scratch coat .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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It was all well enough to treat some earthworms, some climbing-plants, and some brightly colored birds as fit, and others as unfit, to survive; but when this distinction is extended over human beings and their economic, social, and political affairs, there is a general pricking-up of ears.
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From the time he entered the lobby of the Buford Hotel until he retired last night, he was always surrounded by a crowd; and generally he was the spokesman, though the attentive pricking-up of his ears and the narrow closing of his eyelids indicate that as a listener he is a genius -- a man that the world likes to whisper to.
Idle Comments 1905
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