Through and through
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Look up through and through in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Through and through describes a situation where an object, real or imaginary, passes completely through another object, also real or imaginary. The phrase has several common uses:
Printmaking
An image may be through and through in the following cases:
- ink or paint has penetrated to the other side
- inlaying with another material, stained glass, patchwork, woodwork, linoleum, marble, etc.
- carving out (e.g. wood carving), cutting out, perforation: this may concern the outside shape, shaped holes, and patterns of holes (e.g. in a punched card; also a passport may have its number perforated in the pages, to make forgery more difficult).
- embroidery etc.
Through and through images are more durable; they do not easily wear off.
In the case that the image can be viewed from the other side, we see the mirror image, just like in the case of a transparent image, such as a drawing on a transparent sheet.
A sheet with a through and through image is achiral. We can distinguish two cases:
- the sheet surface with the image has no axis of symmetry parallel to the axis of rotation - the two sides are different (e.g. U on a page rotated L-R)
- the sheet surface with the image has an axis of symmetry parallel to the axis of rotation - the two sides are the same (e.g. C on a page rotated L-R)
Forensics
Through and through is also used in forensics to describe a bullet that has passed through a body, leaving both entry and exit wounds.