Corpora: rotagraph / rotograph

[Robert Kraft]

I must have used the wrong search option in our electronic OED. Another
try, with full text option, produced the following:

<quote>


rotograph

rotograph rou.togræf. f. L. rota wheel + -graph. A photographic print
(esp. of a page in a book or manuscript) made by exposing
the object through a lens and prism, so that its reversed image is thrown
upon part of a roll of sensitive paper. Also attrib.

     1898 in Trade Marks Jrnl. No. 1098 (1899) 408.

     1903 H. S. Ward's Fig. Photogr. (ed. 3) 95 `Rotograph' Papers.

     1903 H. S. Ward's Fig. Photogr. 183 `Rotograph' formulæ;

     1906 Oxford Univ. Press Circular (24 Nov.), Rotary Bromide Prints, or
Rotographs.
</quote>

Similarly detailed information is found under "rotogravure":

<quote>
rotogravure

rotogravure rou:to,graviu<schwa>.r. Printing. Also ||rotogravur,
rotagravure, and with capital initial. orig. the name of the
Rotogravur Deutsche Tiefdrück Gesellschaft (Berlin), said to be f; the
names of two other companies, Rotophot (Berlin) and
Deutsche Photogravur AG (Siegburg), adopted in Eng. with assimilation of
the ending to that of photogravure. The form
rotagravure (in sense 1) is an etymologizing re-formation f. L. rota
wheel, roller + photo)gravure or Fr. gravure engraving.

1. A method of printing by means of a rotary press with intaglio
cylinders, usu. used at high speed for long print runs.

     1913 Photography 7 Jan. 2/1 The half-tone block..has advantages for
certain purposes which it does not share..with
     Rotogravure.

     1913 Illustr. London News 8 Feb. (Suppl.) p. iii/1 The rotogravur
method is that more generally called the carbon.

     1914 N.Y. Times 29 Mar. 11/1 Advance copies of the rotogravure
section of The Times of next Sunday..awakened
     enthusiasm. This is the first rotogravure section to be printed upon
the new rotogravure presses of The Times, and it contains
     thirty-eight additional famous paintings from the Altman collection.

     1919 S. H. Morgan in Inland Printer July 407/1 The proper name for
the process and its product is `rotary photogravure',
     and it is quite natural that in these busy times there would be an
effort to abbreviate these two words. So why not use..`rota',
     meaning a wheel or roll, and `gravure',..and by combining the two
call it `rotagravure' hereafter?

     1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 731/1 Rotagravure.

     1942 J. Steinbeck Moon is Down ii. 29 Lieutenant Prackle took from
his pocket a folded rotogravure page and he unfolded
     it and held it up and looked at it. It was a picture of a girl.

     1957 Gravure Mar. 38/3 The first use of rotogravure in a periodical
occurred in 1897, when a gravure illustration was
     included with an article by W. Burger describing the Castle
Kreuzenstein, and which appeared in the monthly bulletin of the
     Imperial Austrian Museum of Art and Industry.

     1972 Physics Bull. Sept. 532/2 For high quality colour work with long
runs (one million or more) rotogravure printing is
     universally used.

2. A sheet or other object, or a section of a newspaper or magazine, that
has been printed by this process.

     1914 N.Y. Times 29 Mar. 11/3 The rotogravures are superior to any
group of reproductions I have ever seen issued in this
     way, except for the occasional photogravure that some publication has
put forth.

     1943 D. Powell Time to be Born iv. 94, I suppose business experience
never can quite make up for your picture in the
     Sunday rotogravure.

     1968 L. J. Braun Cat who turned on & Off vii. 64 His pleasurable
dreams were always in colour; others were in sepia, like
     old-time rotogravure.

     1978 J. Updike Coup (1979) v. 197 The American press loved this
artful clown; in their rotogravures he looked like a
     negative print of Santa Claus.
</quote>

That about covers it!

Bob

--
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
kraft at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html