egg-crate

English

Alternative forms

• egg crate
• eggcrate

Verb

egg-crate (third-person singular simple present egg-crates, present participle egg-crating, simple past and past participle egg-crated)

1. To put into egg crates.
2. To compartmentalize; to separate into isolated or self-contained groups, containers, or modules.
   • 1957, James William Tutt, The Entomologist's Record and Journal of Variation:

     We have found that with adequate internal egg-crating, no killing agent is needed, and providing that the light is set to go out about dawn no damage due to restlessness is caused to the moths inside.

   • 1994, Manufacturing Review, page 230:

     Parts that are egg-crated are placed in individual cells made of cardboard sheets, like egg packaging or Christmas ornament packaging.

   • 2000 June, “Aero Matching”, in Popular Mechanics, volume 177, number 6, page 106:

     I'm not talking about enough templates to egg-crate the car.

   • 2015, Leonard J. Waks, Education 2.0, →ISBN:

     When we examine model cyberschools, however, we find that despite their innovations in technology and space utilization, they still rely on age-grading, (virtual) egg-crating, predetermined curriculum, and standardized tests.

3. To provide with a texture that is typical of an egg carton: either a lattice or having a pattern of regular depressions.
   • 2015, Alexander Schreyer, Architectural Design with SketchUp, →ISBN, page 137:

     This extension allows you to egg-crate any geometry.

4. To attach two surfaces together using multiple points of attachment in a lattice pattern, often in order to provide strength while minimizing weight.
   • 1950, Pacific Fisherman - Volume 48, page 49:

     The hulls are four-compartment vessels with thwartships framing, longitudinally braced, with continuous engineroom girders, "egg-crated" into transverse floors.

   • 1959, Discovery: A Magazine of Scientific Progress - Volume 20, page 467:

     The inner bottom of the ship is "egg-crated" with transverse floors at every frame, and is enormously strong.

   • 1998 September, Mike Smith, “Officer Material: What it Takes to Make the Grade”, in Boating, volume 71, number 9, page 99:

     While most builders assemble a bottom-support system using plywood stringers and floors egg-crated together, then glassed into the hull, Thunderbird has switched to a molded-fiberglass grid for most of its FASTECH hulls.

   • 2006, A. Brent Strong, Plastics: Materials and Processing, →ISBN, page 712:

     Egg-crating can also be used to support metal molds where the thickness of the metal has been reduced to improve weight savings and costs.

   • 118, Robert C. Hansen, Robert E. Collin, Small Antenna Handbook, →ISBN, page 2011:

     But three boards cannot be “egg-crated” together without cutting some conductors, thereby necessitating pigtail or wire bond connections.

5. (lighting) To equip with an egg crate.
   • 2007, American Cinematographer - Volume 88, Issues 1-5, page 67:

     Front- and backlights are egg-crated Chimera Lightbanks.

6. To display multiple images on a single screen separated by sharp edges.

Noun

egg-crate (plural egg-crates)

1. (lighting) Alternative form of egg crate
   • 2013, Blain Brown, Cinematography: Theory and Practice, →ISBN, page 8-22:

     Often used with the studio is the egg-crate, which minimizes side spill and does make the beam a bit more controllable.

   • 2014, Kent Otto Stever, Kinder, Gentler Ways: Reflections of a River Town Boy, →ISBN:

     Pa strings the lights while Janet takes the ornaments one by one from the cardboard egg-crates.

   • 2014, James Mahaffey, Atomic Accidents, →ISBN:

     There was no fuel cladding, no zirconium egg-crates holding the fuel in a rigid matrix, no steam in the reactor vessel to float away with fission products into the atmosphere, and, of course, there was no danger of the fuel melting.

   • 2015, Leonard J. Waks, Education 2.0, →ISBN:

     New virtual learning environments (VLEs) such as Eluminate (now Blackboard Collaborate) are virtual egg-crates.