catagraph

English

Etymology

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Noun

catagraph (plural catagraphs)

1. (obsolete) A rough draft of a picture; an outline or sketch.
   • 1820, William Chamberlayne, Pharonnida - Volume 1, page 158:

     till to A picture's first rude catagraph, the art Of an ingenious pencil doth impart Each complement of skill;

   • 1849, William Strachey, Richard Henry Major, The Historie of Travaile Into Virginia Britannia, page 53:

     Somewhat maye this catagraph or portrature following serve to expresse the presentment of this great king Powhatan.

   • 1876 May, Montgomery G. Preston, “May-Queen”, in Godey's Magazine, volume 92, number 551, page 433:

     A score or more of bold, daedal strokes upon paper, and the corner-stone was laid of the edifice destined to contain George Weldon's brightest dreams, his "all of life," though it was only with the exultation of an artist, gloating over the acquisition of so fair a specimen, that he safely stowed away the catagraph which promised him so much, casting but little thought upon the fact that often "the things we make no account of have in them the seeds of life;"

2. (obsolete) A brief, incomplete description; an outline.
   • 1854, Robert Sears, The Family Instructor, Or, Digest of General Knowledge, page 156:

     We have yet another to describe in our catagraph of the genus—the Snout. This is a nose concerning which there can be no mistake.

   • 1861, E. P. H., The Life and Services of Major-general:

     Reader, in this little volume— a catagraph— the career of Lafayette from early boyhood to his lamented death has been traced.

   • 1865, Abby Buchanan Longstreet, Remy St. Remy, Or, The Boy in Blue, page 331:

     These pages are only a catagraph after all.

   • 1898, Charles Gleig -, The Edge of Honesty, page 142:

     The worthy Bishop, who lived very comfortably in his palace, and displayed a mild theoretical interest in missionary work, had been rather shocked by Markham's catagraph of horrors, and seemed anxious to counteract the pessimistic note which had dominated the conclusion of the address.

3. A structure made from the traces of canals or cavities believed to be produced by cyanophytes or bacteria during the Late Precambrian and Lower Cambrian eras.
   • 1972, Gerard J. B. Germs, The Stratigraphy and Paleontology of the Lower Nama Group, South West Africa:

     It is interesting that oncolites and catagraphs occur abundantly in limestones of the Schwarzkalk Limestone Member of the Kuib is Formation.

   • 1981, The Tommotian stage and the Cambrian lower boundary problem, page 250:

     The upper subdivision of these strata, the calcareous Dashkian Formation, contains the complete and distinct "fourth" oncolite and catagraph assemblage bearing Vesicularites bothrydioformis (Krasn.), Ambigolamellatus horridus, […]

   • 1990, Tasmania. Geological Survey, Explanatory Report, One Mile Geological Map Series:

     In the Devils Eye Dolomite samples, the catagraph walls are usually clearly defined, only 1-10 μm thick, and are the substrate for a secondary cement that has grown centrifugally and centripetally to fill intergranular and intragranular porosity.