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transfer paper

transfer paper

1 3.7
Paper with a special coating that lets you move a design onto another surface often using heat
  • noun
translation icon : papel transfer
  • The artist used transfer paper to easily replicate her original sketch onto the canvas.
  • Using transfer paper

Examples

  • I made sure to flip the images to make them mirror images so that when I put the transfer paper down on the shirt it would show up the right way.

  • After tracing around all the letters, remove the copy and transfer paper from the foam board.

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  • (My paper was smaller than my image, so I pieced it together with tape to get one large piece of transfer paper.)

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  • On top of that lay the transfer paper—graphite side down.

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  • To create a custom shirt design, place the transfer paper on the fabric and iron it to transfer the image.

  • I traced the pattern onto the wood using transfer paper to ensure accurate placement of the design.

Surface Forms

Morphology

transfer + paper

The compound 'transfer paper' is transparently built from 'transfer' (to move or convey) + 'paper' (a sheet material), so a learner can infer it is paper used for transferring something (e.g., images or designs). This noun–noun compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows straightforward English compounding, making the meaning accessible to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.

Etymology

Transfer paper comes from the simple image of a sheet that holds a picture so it can be moved to another surface: the paper keeps the design and the transfer 'moves' it onto cloth, plastic, or another page. So today transfer paper means a special sheet covered with a material that lets a design be moved from the paper onto T-shirts, fabric, or other surfaces.