sighten
verbEtymology From sight + -en.
1
To add a fugitive colour to (a paste), to enable the printer to determine whether the figures are well-printed or not.
Calico-printing
- The iron liquor should be sightened with logwood.1830, Samuel Frederick Gray, The Chemistry of the Arts:
- Annexed is a specimen of calico in this stage of the process, the mordant on which is red liquor, “sightened” with a little decoction of peach-wood or similar dye-stuff.1849, Edward Andrew Parnell, Dyeing and Calico-printing, page 132:
- Derived terms
- sightening