Veining

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The pattern of lines or markings seen in certain materials, indicating the arrangement of minerals or fibers
2. A distinctive series of streaks or lines that can adorn surfaces, often found in stones or leaves
3. The characteristic network of lines or coloration that enhances the visual appeal of fabrics, food, or geological formations

Etymology: "Veining" is the present participle and gerund of "vein", so its story is really the story of the vein itself. The English noun came into Middle English as "veine", borrowed from Anglo-Norman, which took it from the Latin "vena", meaning a blood-vessel or artery. The Latin word's own origin is uncertain, and it is a doublet of "vena", meaning the two forms entered English by different routes. English once had a native word for this thing. "Edre", from Old English "ǣdre", meant a blood-vessel, and it survives today only in "edder" (a dialect word for a snake's relative, not for a vessel). The French-derived "vein" displaced it, so the body's channels and the markings on stone and wood now share a single borrowed name. The sense of "veining" as the streaks in marble or the grain in a leaf followed from the comparison with the branching blood-vessels. The same image of lines branching through a solid body carried over from anatomy to geology and botany.

Synonyms: striation, marking