Papermaking

On a paper-mill order form, gestrichen means coated: the sheet has been given a thin layer of pigment and binder, die Streichfarbe, which makes it smooth enough for fine print. The word is simply the past participle of streichen, and it keeps every other job that verb does. Frisch gestrichen on a park bench means wet paint. Der Flug wurde gestrichen in the news means the flight was cancelled, struck off the schedule. And ein gestrichener Teelöffel in a recipe is a level teaspoon, the surplus swept off with a knife. All four come from the same movement, something drawn flat across a surface; which one is meant depends entirely on what is being stroked. In the mill the opposite is ungestrichen, uncoated, and nobody reading a paper specification thinks of paint or of a cancelled flight.