vbl. sb. [f. SPACE v.]
1. The action of the verb, in various senses, or the result of this action, Also with out. a. In printing or writing.
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, xxii. ¶ 8. With too great Spacing-out or too Close Setting, he … may save himself a great deal of Labour.
1771. Luckombe, Hist. Print., 396. Spacing consists in putting a proper distance between words. Ibid. In common Roman Matter, a moderate equal distance between word and word, is counted True Spacing.
1808. Stower, Printer’s Gram., vi. 159. Close spacing is as unpleasant to the sight as wide spacing.
1862. Macm. Mag., Nov., 15/2. Where the printer can help by means of large letters and spacing.
1871. Spectator, 22 April, 474. The difference between huddling and spacing out is one which depends partly on character…, very few men … spacing out their letters exactly alike.
b. In general use.
1874. Thearle, Naval Archit., 129. The sizes and spacing of the rivets must be regulated accordingly.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 31/2. The spacing of the beams depends largely upon the positions of the hatchways.
1895. Jrnl. R. Inst. Brit. Archit., 14 March, 349. There are other points of difference between the spacing out of the pictures.
attrib. 1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2251/1. Spacing and Boring Machine. (Wood-working.) A machine for boring blind-stiles, sashes, etc., at accurately equal distances.
1882. Caulfeild & Saward, Dict. Needlework, 442/2. Spacing Lace … does not intimate a particular kind of lace, but lace used for a certain purpose.
2. Med. Period of time, esp. between the attacks of malarial fever.
1898. P. Manson, Trop. Diseases, ii. 48. The fever…, except in the matter of the spacing, which is one of forty-eight hours, resembles that caused by the quartan parasite.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 207. The intervals between words—the spacing or order in time of utterance—may be irregular.
3. Breadth of treatment; spaciousness.
1877. Morley, Crit. Misc., Ser. II. 257. If we are now and then conscious in the book of a certain want of spacing,… a sense of being too narrowly enclosed.
