The AI-powered English dictionary
countable and uncountable, plural thickenings
The process of making something, or becoming, thick or viscous. examples
A substance, usually a source of starch, used to thicken a sauce. examples
A thickened part of a structure. quotations examples
[…] the inner layer (of nearly equally large cells) lacks the regular semiannular or annular thickenings of most other leafy liverworts […]
1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, page 6
They disappear at once on slightly relaxing the air-pressure, whilst true incipient thickenings of the surface remain white and unpliably stiff.
1902, Edwin Hurry Fenwick, Obscure Diseases of the Urethra, page 30
present participle and gerund of thicken examples
not comparable
Beginning to thicken, becoming thicker. quotations examples
From Keighley onwards we had obviously returned to civilisation, for the surrounding country was now studded with the sodium street lights of suburbia and a thickening industrial haze was blotting out the moon.
1960 January, G. Freeman Allen, “"Condor"—British Railways' fastest freight train”, in Trains Illustrated, page 48