The Collaborative International Dictionary
Calking \Calk"ing\, n. The act or process of making seems tight, as in ships, or of furnishing with calks, as a shoe, or copying, as a drawing.
Calking iron, a tool like a chisel, used in calking ships, tightening seams in ironwork, etc.
Their left hand does the calking iron guide.
--Dryden.
Calk \Calk\ (k[add]k), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Calked; p. pr. & vb. n. Calking.] [Either corrupted fr. F. calfater (cf. Pg. calafetar, Sp. calafetear), fr. Ar. qalafa to fill up crevices with the fibers of palm tree or moss; or fr. OE. cauken to tred, through the French fr. L. calcare, fr. calx heel. Cf. Calk to copy, Inculcate.]
To drive tarred oakum into the seams between the planks of (a ship, boat, etc.), to prevent leaking. The calking is completed by smearing the seams with melted pitch.
To make an indentation in the edge of a metal plate, as along a seam in a steam boiler or an iron ship, to force the edge of the upper plate hard against the lower and so fill the crevice.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of calk English)
Usage examples of "calking".
Sandpaper, calking material and calking compound, antifouling marine hull paint, deck paint and varnish.
The ceiling was festooned with chamber pots, lavatory seats, Victorian enema pumps, soil-glaze drainpipes, grease traps, earthenware urinals, calking tools, spanners, closet hoppers, faucets, tack moulds, basin wrenches, yarning chisels, a very old thawing steamer, bibcocks, a jerking shank and numerous blowtorches with assorted ends.
The three men spent half an hour calking about the difficulties Rangers were having in asserting themselves up front and translating their aerial superiority into goals.
And these few days it was necessary to employ in planking and carefully calking the vessel, and launching her.
I kept on, hardly even aware when calking hammers began sounding on the ways.
The ringing clatter of the calking hammers died away at twelve as the men knocked off and went home.
Sisters,' Calcutta, and see that one they're calking, the 'Montevideo,' Callao.
For calking the seams they made oakum of dry seaweed, which was hammered in between the planks.