Museums and conservation

The thirteenth entry is as manchas de humidade, and English keeps a one-word name for it that no learner arrives at by translating. On paper and in books, the small rust-brown spots that damp leaves behind are « foxing », and a sheet carrying them is « foxed » — « a clean copy, lightly foxed at the edges » is the kind of line a dealer writes without pausing. Where the word came from has never been settled, so it is safer to learn it as a label than as a picture. Two things about it are worth having. The verb behind it barely survives: nobody « foxes » a book, and the most one says is that a page « has foxed ». And it is not a general word for wet damage. A brown tidemark left where water ran is « staining »; a grey bloom that has grown is « mould »; « foxing » is kept for the scattered spots. So as manchas de humidade of this list is read as foxing, and handing it back as « damp stains » gives up the one word the trade actually uses.