[f. BLOT v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb BLOT; concr. a blot, smear, obliteration.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 41. Blottynge, oblitteracio.
1542–3. Act 34–35 Hen. VIII., i. The blotting or cutting out of anie quotacion.
1656. Artif. Handsomeness (1662), 47. The most accurate pencils were but blottings which presumed to mend Zeuxis or Apelles works.
1791. Boswell, Johnson (1831), I. 350. Blottings, interlineations, and corrections.
1842. Browning, Waring, III. There were certain jottings, Stray-leaves, fragments, blurrs and blottings.
2. Blotting out: obliteration of writing, etc.; also, effacement, destruction, annihilation.
1808. Syd. Smith, Plymley’s Lett., Wks. 1859, II. 159/2. [No] one of his conquered countries the blotting out of which would be as beneficial to him.
1861. Mill, Repr. Govt., 137. The virtual blotting out of the minority is no necessary or natural consequence of freedom.
1879. Calderwood, Mind & Brain, 306. A blotting out of impressions.
3. Comb., as blotting-book, a book consisting of leaves of blotting-paper for drying the ink of letters and the like; also, a rough note-book in which entries of transactions are made as they occur, a waste-book; blotting-case, a case or cover enclosing blotting-paper; blotting-pad, a pad consisting of a number of sheets of blotting-paper joined at the edges, used for the same purpose as a blotting-book. Also BLOTTING-PAPER.
1857. W. Collins, Dead Secret (1861), 21. She signed these lines with her name,—pressed them hurriedly over the blotting-pad.
