What does lithographic mean?
Lithographic is an adjective meaning “relating to lithography,” a printmaking and printing technique based on the principle that grease and water repel one another. In the traditional process, an artist draws with a greasy crayon or ink on a flat limestone surface, and a chemically treated area of the stone attracts ink while the untreated area rejects it. Paper is then pressed against the prepared surface to transfer the image. The term is used especially in art history, printmaking, and the description of printing processes, as in “lithographic print,” “lithographic plate,” and “lithographic printing.” Although modern photographic and digital methods have largely replaced the traditional stone process in commercial printing, lithography remains important in the history of posters, portraits, illustrations, and fine-art prints. The word also appears in the names of businesses and techniques that continue to use related planographic processes.
adjectiveRelating to lithography, a printing process that uses a treatment of a flat stone or metal plate to make areas of an image receptive or non-receptive to ink.
- Relating to lithography or to an image produced by that process.
"The museum acquired a rare lithographic print from the nineteenth century."
"The artist produced a series of striking lithographic portraits."
"The workshop specializes in lithographic printing on handmade paper."
Before photographic reproduction became practical, lithography made it possible to print many copies of a hand-drawn image by treating the flat surface of a stone rather than carving into it.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does lithographic come from?
The word comes from lithography, which combines Greek lithos, meaning “stone,” with graphein, meaning “to write” or “to draw.” The adjective lithographic was formed from this term in the nineteenth century, when lithography became an established printing and artistic process. The same Greek stone root also appears in words such as lithic and lithology, while lithography itself is the closely related process from which the adjective is derived.
Related word forms
How lithographic is actually used
Usually used attributively before a noun, as in “lithographic print” or “lithographic process.” It is primarily a technical or art-historical term.
Easily confused with lithographic
A lithograph is a print or image made by lithography, whereas lithographic is an adjective describing the process or something associated with it.
Lithography is the printing process itself, while lithographic describes something connected with or produced by that process.