Word.ws English Dictionary

gesso

/ˈd͡ʒɛsəʊ/

gesso noun: a mixture of plaster of Paris and glue used to prepare a surface for painting.

Noun

gesso (usually uncountable, plural gessos or gessoes)

  1. (usually) A mixture of plaster of Paris and glue used to prepare a surface for painting.
    • The combination of leaf gold and gesso is almost miraculous. No photographic reproduction can adequately show the brilliant effect of raised gesso.1994, Timothy Noad, Patricia Seligman, The Illuminated Alphabet, The Quarto Group (Chartwell Books), 2017, page 27
    • To make the gesso, you need a chalk and a glue. During the Renaissance, gesso was made with gypsum, which is calcium sulphate. Terra Alba, available from art suppliers today, is a natural gypsum that makes a bright white gesso.1999, Altoon Sultan, The Luminous Brush, Watson-Guptill, page 37
  2. (usually) A work of art done in gesso.

Forms of gesso

pluralgessos
pluralgessoes

Origin of gesso

Borrowed from Italian gesso. Doublet of gypsum. Compare Portuguese gesso (“gypsum; plaster, cast”) and Spanish yeso (“gypsum; plaster, cast”).

Words formed from gesso

Questions about gesso

What does gesso mean?
Gesso means a mixture of plaster of Paris and glue used to prepare a surface for painting.
What part of speech is gesso?
Gesso is a noun.
How do you pronounce gesso?
Gesso is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɛsəʊ/.
What is the plural of gesso?
The plural of gesso is gessos.

Words near gesso in the dictionary

  1. Gesners
  2. gessamine
  3. Gessler
  4. Gessner
  5. Gessners
  6. gesso
  7. gesso duro
  8. gessoed
  9. gessoes
  10. gessos
  11. gest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gesso (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “gesso.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gesso. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.