What is "pencils"

Usage examples of "pencils".

We had been using pencils and pieces of paper, but the computer was a lot quicker.

Old pencils were thin sticks of wax mixed with soot and wrapped with string to keep your hands clean.

The men came out of all the stacks with clipboards and pencils, sweat and curiosity, leers for Mallory, and puffs of cigarette smoke.

He had closed the door behind him and was standing at the elevator when he thought to go back, to pound on her door and demand to know which one of them made the pencils fly.

When the paste has had time to dry, the mould or grooved board is put into a moderately heated oven, by which the paste, now in the form of square pencils, shrinks sufficiently to fall out of the grooves.

The pencils just described are alike throughout all their thickness, but in the majority of English pencils there is a wooden holder to contain a narrow filament of black lead running down the middle.

The crayons here alluded to are employed rather for drawing than for writing, but they obviously belong to the class of pencils in their mode of action.

In the early part of the seventeenth century black-lead pencils are distinctly described by several writers.

From Italy these pencils subsequently found their way to Germany, but it is not apparent under what particular name.

The first lead pencils are supposed to have been manufactured in England in the second half of the sixteenth century.

Strange though it may appear, the lead pencils first manufactured in this manner are acknowledged to have been the best--and even at the beginning of the present century they remained unsurpassed upon the score of the softness and fine tone of the lead.

Although the Cumberland lead pencils were in great demand owing to the fact that they were the first to successfully meet a long-felt want, they nevertheless owed their permanent and wide-spread reputation-- more especially in artistic circles--to their excellent quality.

This method offered several advantages, for not only did the addition of clay cause a saving of a large percentage of the valuable mineral, but it greatly facilitated the method of manufacture, so that lead pencils could now be offered at greatly reduced prices.

By these improvements a new era in the manufacture of lead pencils was begun in France.

It is true, different kinds of lead pencils of various degrees were produced, but they did not comply by a long way with the different uses for which they were needed.