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1758 T. Flloyd & J. Hill tr. J. Swammerdam Bk. Nature i. i. xii. 67/1 In the Penicilli Marini, which the French call pencils or plumes, the most wise architect has disposed their windings in a very different manner.

1815 E. J. Burrow Elements Conchol. 206 (table) Dentalium..Elephantinum. Fluted Elephant's Tooth. Horn-green pencil.

1837 Penny Cycl. VIII. 475/1 The pencil diamond used by glaziers to cut glass with is a small fractured piece of diamond..of a trapezoidal shape, weighing about the 60th part of a carat, and set in a wooden handle... Two pencil diamonds are now in use, the old and the new or patent pencil.

1875 R. Hunt & F. W. Rudler Ure's Dict. Arts (ed. 7) II. 735 Graphitoid carbon destined to form the pencils used for the electric light.

1889 G. M. Hopkins Exper. Sci. xviii. 512 By placing in..each holder a small pencil of battery carbon,..so that the points of the carbons touch, and connecting the instrument with the battery,..a small but very brilliant light will be produced.

1890 Webster's Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Pencil,..a small medicated bougie.

1913 London, Edinb., & Dublin Philos. Mag. 6th Ser. 25 604 A narrow pencil of α particles fell on a zinc sulphide screen.

1924 A. J. Allmand & H. J. T. Ellingham Princ. Appl. Electrochem. (ed. 2) xxv. 651 The heating is carried out by radiation from a number of carbon electrode pencils, extending across the tunnel from side to side.

1954 W. Lewis Self Condemned vi. 64 He pointed his bearded lips and puffed a pencil of blue smoke.

1967 Listener 30 Mar. 429/3 The picture is positioned, and a tiny pencil of X-rays is emitted at the spot where we want to analyse a pigment.

1973 G. Jenkins Cleft of Stars iii. 36 Called technically a ‘sharp’, my diamond pencil looked like an ordinary pencil made of metal.

1992 Gourmet Sept. 134/1 A lattice topping can be fashioned by forming bits of dough into long ‘pencils’, as well as rolling and cutting the dough into strips.