indrawing

plural indrawings

1. An inhalation of breath; an inspiration.

   The words came with a fierce hissing indrawing of the speaker's breath.

   1906, Fred M. White, The Slave of Silence

   2 more examples

   But--oh," she added, with a sharp indrawing of her breath, "how I did love him!"

   1910, Myrtle Reed, Master of the Vineyard

   But the only outward expression they gained was a throwing back of the head, and a deep indrawing of the breath, followed by the quite uninspired exclamation, "Holloa, there's the ocean!"

   1897, Maud Wilder Goodwin, Flint

2. The drawing inward of anything.

   Watt saw the little movements of the stuff, the little bulgings and crumplings, and the sudden indrawings, where it was nipped, between forefinger and thumb probably, for those are the nippers.

   1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC