[f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To spread, smooth, or dress (a surface) with or as with a trowel; to form or mold with a trowel; in quot. c. 1670, to coat thickly with.
c. 1670. Ld. Orrery, in Daily Chron., 12 June (1903), 3/3. The Women are never old, for the Wrinkles are well filled up by Paint,… the Women trowel themselves with red.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 249. They finish the Plastering … either by Trowelling and brishing it over with fair Water, or else by laying a thin Coat of fine stuff … and … Trowelling and brishing it.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., VIII. IV. iii. 99. They [wasps] stick their load of paste on that part where they make their walls and partitions; they tread it close with their feet, and trowel it with their trunks.
1842. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., V. 337/2. After being properly trowelled, it is jointed to imitate stone.
2. To put, place, or move (something) with or as with a trowel; to lay on with a trowel, i.e., thickly or clumsily; often fig. of flattery or laudation.
1772. Nugent, trans. Hist. Friar Gerund, I. 502. The good gentleman trowels on himself the plaister of praise without reserve.
1792. Coleridge, Lett., to G. Coleridge, 24. If ever hog’s lard is pleasing it is when our superiors trowel it on.
1841. Thackeray, Men & Pictures, 111. The skies are trowelled on; the light-vapouring distances are as thick as plum-pudding.
1898. Hollingshead, Gaiety Chron., i. 45. Mortar and cement were trowelled into their proper places.
Hence Trowelled ppl. a.; trowelled stucco, stucco of the best description intended to be painted; Trowelling vbl. sb.; also Troweller, one who uses a trowel.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 375. *Trowelled-stucco is a very neat kind of work, much used in dining-rooms, vestibules, stair-cases, &c.
1913. Daily News, 31 March, 6. The roof … has a fall of 5 in. in 13 ft. and was simply left with a trowelled finish.
1611. Cotgr., Truelleur, a *Troweller: a Plaisterer, or any one that workes with a Trowell.
1881. Instr. Census Clerks (1885), 80. Floor Cloth, Oil Cloth Manufacture…. Oil Skin Maker, Dealer. Silk Oiler. Trowler.
1630. R. Johnson’s Kingd. & Commw., 598. Their Painting is meere steyning or *trowelling in respect of ours.
