woodblock printing

English
The Great Wave off Kanagawa, a famous example of woodblock printing. Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1830.

Noun

woodblock printing (uncountable)

  1. A technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper.
    Synonym: block printing
    Coordinate terms: woodcut, xylography
    Hypernym: relief printing
    • 2005, Charles Kahn, Ken Osborne, World History: Societies of the Past, Portage & Main Press (→ISBN), page 118:
      They adapted these ideas to woodblock printing. They used pear or jujube wood and cut the wood to the size of two book pages. They then smoothed and softened the wood by covering it with paste.
    • 2011, Tsuen-hsuin Tsien, Collected Writings on Chinese Culture, Chinese University Press (→ISBN), page 145:
      Woodblock printing was first employed by the Chinese around a.d. 700, and movable type in the middle of the eleventh century. Even the indelible lampblack ink, which has been manufactured in the West under the misnomer “India ink,” […]

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