[f. COLOUR v. + -ING1.] 1. The action of the vb. COLOUR in various senses. a. lit.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVI. xxiv. (1495), 561. In peyntynge and colourynge of walles.
1780. Harris, Philol. Enq., Wks. (1841), 419. With good drawing, but with bad and defective colouring.
1821. Craig, Lect. Drawing, iii. 183. The colouring of a head in a process of water colours.
b. techn. The production of a fine polish on a silver surface; done, in silver manufacture, by rubbing with rouge: see also quot. 1875.
1875. Jevons, Money (1878), 126. It is usual to dissolve the copper from the surface of the blank pieces of metal, so as to produce a film of pure white silver upon the surface. This operation called colouring, gives a fine bright appearance to the [base silver] coins when new.
c. fig. The giving of a fair or specious appearance, especially, to what is bad.
1549. Latimer, 3rd Serm. bef. Edw. VI. (Arb.), 88. Nowe a dayes they call them gentle rewardes, let them leaue their colourynge, and cal them by their Christian name. Brybes.
1570. B. Googe, Pop. Kingd., iv. (1880), 57. Fraude and craftie coulourings.
1645. Pagitt, Heresiogr. (1661), 262. Equivocation is a cunning colouring of a lye.
1798. J. Hucks, Poems, 12. Truth … With specious colourings mask’d unholiest views.
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., III. ii. 141. To give the better colouring to their undertaking.
2. The effect of the application of color, the way or style in which anything is colored; also concr. a colored work, a painting.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 61. To give the Flowers that lively and beautiful Colouring, which is … their chief Merit.
1753. Scots Mag., XV. Nov., 546/2. A coach of state bedaubed with gilt and colourings.
1806. Wordsw., Ode Intim. Immort., 198. The Clouds … Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality.
1879. G. Allen, Col. Sense, i. 3. The existence of bright colouring in the world at large.
b. in Painting.
1706. Art of Painting (1744), 5. Colouring … comprehends two things, the local colour, and the claro obscuro.
1862. Thornbury, Turner, I. 339. The old Téméraire is the most glorious consummation of colouring ever painted by English fingers.
1885. Truth, 28 May, 848/1. The colouring of this picture is most objectionable.
c. fig. in Music.
1881. Athenæum, 26 March, 437/1. A certain want of variety in the colouring of his music.
d. Of rhetorical picturesqueness.
1762. J. Brown, Poetry & Mus. (1763), 190. The … highest Colourings of his [Virgil’s] Pencil are prostituted to the Vanity of the ruling Tyrant.
1799. Walpoliana, iii. (1819), 4. From the elegance of its language, and the warm colouring of the descriptions.
1825. Macaulay, Milton, Ess. (1885), 11/1. The art of poetic colouring.
e. Pervading character, tone or aspect.
1769. Blackstone, Comm., IV. 330. The offences differ in colouring and in degree.
1834. J. H. Newman, Par. Serm. (1837), I. xxiv. 362. It takes a general colouring from Christianity.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. iii. 121. They give a different colouring to the transaction.
3. Coloring matter or substance.
c. 1460. J. Russell, Bk. Nurture, 123, in Babees Bk. Turnesole þat is good colourynge.
1884. Health Exhib. Catal., 153/1. Liquid Butter Colouring. Liquid Annatto Cheese Colouring.
