imposing stone

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imposing stone (plural imposing stones)

1. (printing, historical) The stone on which the pages or columns of type are imposed or made into forms.
   • 1841, Thomas Curson Hansard, Treatise on Printing and Type-founding:

     [The printer] gathers the letters marked as corrections in the margin, together with a quantity of spaces of all sizes, and returns to the forms, which in the meanwhile one of them has laid up on the imposing-stones and unlocked.

   • 1922, Clifford Wilson Hague, Textbook of Printing Occupations, page 137:

     Imposition is the process of arranging type forms in the desired position for printing so that they may be locked-up om readiness for the press. It is commonly known as stone-work to the practical printer, because the forms are placed and handled on an imposing stone, and the workmen are known as Impositors.

   • 1971, Technical Manual: TM 8-290: Craft Techniques in Occupational Therapy, United States Department of the Army, page 12-25:

     After the type form has been proofed, corrected, and tied up again, it is ready for printing and must be locked up. This is done on the imposing stone (called a stone because of the flat marble or sandstone on top of the imposing table.

• imposing table
• stone editor

• “imposing stone”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “imposing stone”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• imposing stone at Google Images

• “imposing”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.