Voicing

vbl. sb. [f. VOICE v.]

  † 1.  The action, fact or process of voting by voice; voting; election, nomination or decision by vote. Obs.

1623.  Sanderson, Serm., I. 94. We must confer our voices … upon those whom … we conceive to be the fittest; and the greater the place is … the greater ought our care in voycing to be.

1649.  Bp. Guthrie, Mem. (1702), 119. It was not the Custom in Assemblies for any Man … to interrupt Voicing by Discourses; every one was to answer to the Question, Yea, or Nay, and no more.

a. 1670.  Spalding, Troub. Chas. I. (Spalding Cl.), II. 292. It gois to voiceing, and, be pluralitie of voices, found, no man sould be raisit aganes the countrie.

  2.  The action or fact of uttering with the voice; the speaking or utterance of something; also, † mentioning, speaking about.

c. 1615[?].  Bacon, Wks. (1879), I. 493/1. That the very voicing or suspect of the raising of the price of silver … would make … a deadness and retention of money.

1631.  Mabbe, Celestina, VI. 72. Being wounded with that golden shaft, which at the very voycing of your name, had struck her to the heart.

1657.  J. Watts, Vind. Ch. Eng., 18. The one professeth by their due hearing, and the other by their due voicing (i.), Preaching the word of Faith.

1871.  Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue, xii. 517. Poetry … makes great efforts to express … this finest part of the voicing of language.

1878.  Scribner’s Mag., Oct., 896/1. When Bryant’s sweet and solemn voicing of nature’s meanings and life’s mysteries will fail in their music to the ears of men.

  3.  Speech, vocal utterance; enunciation.

1822.  B. W. Procter, Juan, i. Be silent…, ye ministers Of death and darkness (for your voicing doth Bespeak ye terrible agents).

1860.  Emerson, Cond. Life, Beauty, Wks. (Bohn), II. 430. The clergy have bronchitis … Macready thought it came of the falsetto of their voicing.

  b.  With a and pl.

1849.  M. Arnold, New Sirens, 45.

1873.  W. S. Mayo, Never Again, xi. 145. Expound me, then, these mystic voicings.

  c.  Expression or utterance. rare.

1888.  Advance (Chicago), 29 Nov., 772. How much of all that is best in our modern life had voicing and in some manner organic formulation in this little town.

  4.  Organ-building. The operation or process of obtaining the correct quality of tone in an organ-pipe or stop, or of obtaining the same tone in a series of these; the tone so obtained.

1840.  Penny Cycl., XVII. 2/1. The tone of the pipes … depending on what is technically called the voiceing.

1879.  Organ Voicing, 28. The only difference in the voicing consists in keeping the mouth a trifle lower.

1889.  Stainer, in Grove, Dict. Mus., IV. 335/2. In testing the voicing of an organ-stop.

  attrib.  1879.  Organ Voicing, 25. If … the voicing operations [are] cleanly and correctly done.

  5.  Phonetics. The action or process of producing or uttering with voice or sonancy.

1874.  Ellis, E. E. Pronunc., III. 1113. In middle Germany, where the distinctions (p b, t d) are practically unknown,… recourse is had to what Brücke and M. Bell consider as whispering instead of voicing.