[f. FORGE v.1 + -ING1.]
1. The action of the vb. FORGE in various senses; an instance of the same. Also, used gerundially with the omission of in.
1382. Wyclif, Ecclus. xxxii. 8. As in forging [1388, the making] of gold signe is of a smaragd, so the noumbre of musikis in myrie and temperat wyn.
c. 1400. trans. Secreta Secret., Gov. Lordsh. (E.E.T.S.), 100. Þe craft of fforgynge.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. clxx. 208. What was become of the great treasure, that had ben leuyed in the realme, by deames, maltotes, subsidyes, forgyng of moneys, and in all other extorcyons, wherby the people hath ben ouerlayd and troubled.
a. 1568. Ascham, Scholem. (Arb.), 120–1. Which tooles, I openlie confesse, be not of myne owne forging, but partlie left vnto me by the cunni[n]gest Master, and one of the worthiest Ientlemen that euer England bred, Syr Iohn Cheke.
1594. West, 2nd Pt. Symbol., II. Indict. § 66. Forging of false and fraudulent writings.
1667. Oldenburg, in Phil. Trans., II. 415. Whether the Iron in Pegu and Japan, be far better than ours; and if so, what is to be observed in the melting, forging, and tempering of it?
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1862), I. viii. 36. In this great elaboratory of nature, a thousand benefits and calamities are forging, of which we are wholly unconscious; and it is happy for us that we are so.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, etc., 703. In England there are employed for the forging and drawing out of the iron, cast-iron hammers of great weight, and cylinders of different dimensions, for beating out the balls, or extending the iron into bars, as also powerful shears.
b. concr. A product of forging; a forged mass (of iron, etc.).
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 95. The skill hitherto displayed in welding large forgings of wrought iron into shafts, or other large masses, has been of a very low order.
1882. Worc. Exhib. Catal., iii. 15. Tyres and forging of Whitworth steel.
2. attrib., as forging-hammer, -mill.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 906/1. Forging-hammer. A hammer used by gold-beaters.
1887. Hissey, Holiday on Road, iv. 73. Doubtless these pools were in times past constructed to supply the requisite water-power for forging or other mills.
