Kalpana Kalpana (Editor)

Through and through

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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:

Contents

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.

    References

    Through and through Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA