ppl. a. [f. WAX v.2 + -ED1.] In the senses of the verb; esp., coated with a layer of wax; polished or stiffened with wax; dressed or saturated with wax, e.g., for water-proofing.
a. 1380. St. Augustine, 387, in Horstm., Altengl. Leg. (1878), 68. In a waxed table He wrot.
1586. Whitney, Choice Emblems, 28. His [Icarus’s] waxed winges, the sonne did make so softe, They melted straighte.
1597. A. M., trans. Guillemeau’s Fr. Chirurg., 15/1. This suture is done with a waxed threde.
1633. J. Law, in Scotsman (1907), 7 Sept. [He paid 16 shillings] for soleing walxt boots.
1651. T. Barker, Art of Angling (1653), 13. You must work al these grounds upon a waxed silk.
c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Arts, II. 46. When you take off the paper you will find every line which you drew with the black lead pencil upon the waxed plate.
1846. Brittan, trans. Malgaigne’s Man. Oper. Surg., 347. The piercer is withdrawn, and a double waxed thread passed through its canula.
1857. Dickens, Dorrit, II. xx. Waxed floor very slippery.
1883. D. C. Murray, Hearts, xxi. Tapping his visitor’s hand with the waxed end of his long pipe.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 22 Oct., 2/2. A waxed moustache.
b. Leather-manuf. Of a skin: Dressed on the flesh side with a mixture of lamp-black and oil.
1851–3. C. Tomlinson’s Cycl. Useful Arts (1866), II. 36/1. The skin of leather now curried is called black on the flesh, or waxed, in contradistinction to leather which is curried on the hair or grain side.
1883. Simmonds, Dict. Useful Anim., Waxed Fleshes, a trade name for certain leathers, prepared of the inner side of split skins.
1885. A. Watt, Leather Manuf., 341. Waxed Leather. Ibid., 350. Waxed Calf-skins.
c. Photogr. Of paper, a paper negative: Saturated with wax.
1853. Le Gray’s Waxed Paper Process, 8. Method of rendering the iodised waxed paper sensitive. Ibid., 16. Renovating the transparency of the waxed negative.
1857. W. Crookes, Hand Bk. Waxed Paper Process in Photogr., 25. When this has taken place the waxed sheets must be separated one from the other.
d. waxed-end = wax-end (WAX sb.1 12).
1914. Daily News, 30 June, 4. It is entirely due to the awl and the waxed-end.
