▪ I. † ˈtapering, n. Obs. nonce-wd.
[f. taper n.1 + -ing1.]
The using of tapers.
| 1599 Sandys Europæ Spec. (1632) 140 Willing by his Testament to bee buried in the night without their attending, tapering, censing or singing. |
▪ II. ˈtapering, vbl. n.
[f. taper v. + -ing1.]
The action of the verb taper in various senses; concr. a thing or part that tapers. Also tapering-off.
| 1610 W. Folkingham Art of Survey i. iii. 6 The boaling, spreading,..and tapering of trees. 1677 Moxon Mech. Exerc. ii. 30 The Screw-plate will, after it gets a little below the tapering, go no further, but work and wear off the thred again it made about the tapering. 1884 Bower & Scott De Bary's Phaner. 485 Those [cells]..must further show a conical tapering. 1890 L. D'Oyle Notches 186 It will take you months of steady tapering down. 1890 W. James Princ. Psychol. I. iv. 124 The question of ‘tapering-off’, in abandoning such habits as drink and opium-indulgence, comes in here. 1955 Koestler Trail of Dinosaur 136 The Jews alone among the varied European immigrant population have resisted this ‘tapering off’ process. |
▪ III. ˈtapering, ppl. a.
[-ing2.]
That tapers; taper.
| a 1625 Nomenclator Navalis (Harl. MS. 2301) s.v., I have seene in Flemings the Top saile Tapering. 1665 Phil. Trans. I. 35 Insects with large Heads and small tapering Bodies. 1787 A. Clarke in Life iv. (1863) 33 After the tapering thread of life is spun out. 1807 Hutton Course Math. II. 267 A piece of tapering timber. 1893 Liddon, etc. Life Pusey I. i. 5 Long hands and tapering fingers. |
Hence ˈtaperingly adv., in a tapering manner.
| 1878 H. S. Wilson Alp. Ascents iii. 92 As a champagne bottle has to be taperingly elongated. 1883 C. Robson in Science Gossip May 106 The posterior portion of the abdomen beyond the cornua prolonged taperingly considerably. |