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Chalk vs Pencil - What's the difference?

chalk | pencil |

As nouns the difference between chalk and pencil

is that chalk is a soft, white, powdery limestone while pencil is a paintbrush.

As verbs the difference between chalk and pencil

is that chalk is to apply chalk to anything, such as the tip of a billiard cue while pencil is to write something using a pencil.

chalk

English

Alternative forms

* chaulk (dated)

Noun

  • (uncountable) A soft, white, powdery limestone.
  • (countable) A piece of chalk, or, more often, processed compressed chalk, that is used for drawing and for writing on a blackboard.
  • Tailor's chalk.
  • (uncountable, climbing) A white powdery substance used to prevent hands slipping from holds when climbing, sometimes but not always limestone-chalk.
  • (US, military, countable) A platoon-sized group of airborne soldiers.
  • (US, sports, chiefly, basketball) The prediction that there will be no upsets, and the favored competitor will win.
  • * {{quote-news, 1982, March 22, Phil Musick, And the pick here is - Georgetown over Houston, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette citation
  • , passage=OK, let's get rid of the chalk' players right away. The ' chalk likes North Carolina. Dean Smith has taken Carolina to the Final Four six times.}}
  • * {{quote-news, 1995, April 6, , Notes on a Scorecard, Los Angeles Times citation
  • , passage=Excuse us for sticking with the chalk , but the predicted winners are Afternoon Deelites in the Derby, Oliver McCall over Larry Holmes, Nick Faldo in the Masters, and Al Unser Jr. in the Grand Prix.}}
  • * {{quote-news, 2008, March 24, Jason Bauman, Non-news of the week: Obama picks North Carolina, Beacon-News, city=Aurora, Illinois citation
  • , passage=Instead, he played the chalk and selected the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament.}}

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To apply chalk to anything, such as the tip of a billiard cue.
  • To record something, as on a blackboard, using chalk.
  • To use powdered chalk to mark the lines on a playing field.
  • (figuratively) To record a score or event, as if on a chalkboard.
  • To manure (land) with chalk.
  • (Mortimer)
  • To make white, as if with chalk; to make pale; to bleach.
  • (Tennyson)
  • * Herbert
  • Let a bleak paleness chalk the door.

    Derived terms

    * chalk up to * chalky * different as chalk and cheese * chalk line * by a long chalk

    See also

    * (wikipedia) * *

    pencil

    English

    (wikipedia pencil)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A paintbrush.
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.0:
  • But living art may not least part expresse, / Nor life-resembling pencill it can paynt.
  • *, II.17:
  • *:why is it not lawfull for every man to pourtray himself with his pen, as it was for him to doe it with a pensell ?
  • Writing utensil that uses graphite (commonly referred to as lead). Regular pencils usually have a graphite shaft surrounded by wood. Also available in a mechanical version where the graphite length can be adjusted and sharpening is not needed.
  • (geometry) A family of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.
  • (optics) An aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from, or converging to, a point.
  • * 1863 , The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal
  • When, by the pencil becoming oblique to the surface, the vergency produced on the pencil becomes changed, the primary and secondary focal points, V and H, separate
  • (medicine, archaic) A small medicated bougie.
  • Derived terms

    * carpenter's pencil * china pencil * color pencil, colored pencil, coloring pencil * colour pencil, coloured pencil, colouring pencil * golf pencil * grease pencil * lead pencil * mechanical pencil * * pencil crayon * pencil lead * pencil pusher * pencil sharpener * pencil skirt * pencil stub * propelling pencil * wax pencil

    Verb

  • to write something using a pencil
  • I penciled''' (''BrEn:'' '''pencilled ) it in my notebook.

    Derived terms

    * pencil in