An etching is a picture printed from a metal plate that has been etched. The artist covers the plate, draws through the cover, and lets acid eat thin lines into the metal. Ink sits in those bitten lines, and paper pressed on the plate takes the picture. So you do not draw the final picture straight onto the paper; you print it, and you can often pull more than one copy from the same plate. People say 'an etching' for the print on the wall, and 'etching' for the whole craft. The lines usually look fine, sharp, and a little eaten — not like soft pencil. It is an art word. In loose talk, some people call any old-looking print an etching even when it was cut or drawn another way. That is wider than the tidy meaning, which is this acid-and-plate print.