STAINING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Staining

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/stˈeɪnɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Stain v. t. (past & past part. stained; pres. part. staining)

1.

To discolor by the application of foreign matter; to make foul; to spot; as, to stain the hand with dye; armor stained with blood.

2.

To color, as wood, glass, paper, cloth, or the like, by processes affecting, chemically or otherwise, the material itself; to tinge with a color or colors combining with, or penetrating, the substance; to dye; as, to stain wood with acids, colored washes, paint rubbed in, etc.; to stain glass.

3.

To spot with guilt or infamy; to bring reproach on; to blot; to soil; to tarnish. "Of honor void, Of innocence, of faith, of purity, Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained."

4.

To cause to seem inferior or soiled by comparison. "She stains the ripest virgins of her age." "That did all other beasts in beauty stain."

Stained glass, glass colored or stained by certain metallic pigments fused into its substance, often used for making ornamental windows.

Synonyms: To paint; dye; blot; soil; sully; discolor; disgrace; taint. Paint, Stain, Dye. These denote three different processes; the first mechanical, the other two, chiefly chemical. To paint a thing is to spread a coat of coloring matter over it; to stain or dye a thing is to impart color to its substance. To stain is said chiefly of solids, as wood, glass, paper; to dye, of fibrous substances, textile fabrics, etc.; the one, commonly, a simple process, as applying a wash; the other more complex, as fixing colors by mordants.

Stain v. i. To give or receive a stain; to grow dim.

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Etymology of 'Staining'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Staining" Quotes from Famous Books

... deeply and easily where he paused in the middle of the narrow winding road. He glanced at his watch. Nine a.m. He was vaguely perplexed because he did not react more emotionally to the blood staining his slender hands. ...

— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton

... province would give weight and stability to the enterprise. Gordianus, their proconsul, and the object of their choice, refused, with unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honor, and begged with tears, that they would suffer him to terminate in peace a long and innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood. Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his only refuge, indeed, against the jealous cruelty of Maximin; since, according to the reasoning of tyrants, those who have been esteemed worthy of the ...

— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... great happiness to do the best work of his life. He pulled his microscope over in front of him and looked over it after the manner of one dreaming. How many days he had come to it eager to note the slightest significance in its variations of colour, for the staining of the slides made colour count in his work almost as it did in Ernestine's, only to be met with the non-essential, more of the husk and no sight of the kernel. He smiled a little to think what a bulky ...

— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... himself from thence to free, The paynim by this game is angered sore, Who little thins the gathering rabblery, Staining the ground with thousands slain or more; And all the while, in his extremity, Finds that his breath comes thicker than before; And sees he cannot pierce the hostile round, Unless he thence escape while ...

— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... followed, she must have heard me, but she did not look back. The doors along the passage were curtained. Through the gaps of the curtain I could see they were empty of life. The curtains were rotted as if long unused, dirty and blotched with mould staining the leather. ...

— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell

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