Word: steel Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From Middle English stele, stel, from Old English stīele, from Proto-West Germanic *stahlī (“something made of steel”), enlargement of *stahl (“steel”), from Proto-Germanic *stahlą, from *stah- or *stag- (“to be firm, rigid”), from Proto-Indo-European *stak- (“to stay, to be firm”). Compare Scots stele, Yola stehli, German Stahl, Dutch staal, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish stål. Pronunciation: /stiːl/, [stiːɫ] 1. An artificial metal produced from iron, harder and more elastic than elemental iron; used figuratively as a symbol of hardness. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: Ocearium stæli. Example: Accearium steeli. 2. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: For heom ne may halter ne bridel Bringe from here wode wyse, Ne mon mid stele ne mid ire. Example: For braue Macbeth (well hee deſerues that Name) Diſdayning Fortune, with his brandiſht Steele, Which ſmoak'd with bloody execution (Like Valours Minion) caru'd out his paſſage. 3. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: Of ston mid stel in ðe tunder wel to brennen one ðis wunder. Example: The Cock falling with its wonted violence upon the Steel. 4. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: Þai gun hem boþe armi In iren and stiel þat tide. Example: In compleate steele. 5. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The steill to scherp the schawing jrne. Example: When he came to Nottingham, he entered that part of the market where butchers stood, and took up his inn in the best place he could find. Next, he opened his stall and spread his meat upon the bench, then, taking his cleaver and steel and clattering them together, he trolled aloud in merry tones... 6. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: I haue a ruffe is a quarter deep, measured by the yeard... You haue a pretty set too, how big is the steele you set with? Example: I suppose the bullet must have struck the steels in my corsets. 7. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, dialectal, uncountable Example: One of them having occasion to use a Steele, smoothing Iron, or some such kinde of Laundry Instrument. 8. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, dialectal, uncountable Example: The threaded steel...Flies swiftly. 9. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: A re-issue of the Examples of the Architecture of Venice. By John Ruskin... With the Text, and the 16 Plates (10 Steels and 6 Lithographs) as originally published. 10. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The crews at the port batteries were pumping steel at the enemy. 11. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: A trailing skirt embroidered in what is termed fine steel. 12. Any item made of this metal, particularly including: Labels: countable, uncountable 13. Medicinal consumption of this metal; chalybeate medicine; (eventually) any iron or iron-treated water consumed as a medical treatment. Labels: obsolete, uncountable Example: A stronger physick is now necessary, perhaps a whole course of steel: A physick, God knowes, that this Kingdome hath been under five or six yeares. Example: Steel is not so good as Iron for Medicinal Operation. 14. The gray hue of this metal; steel-gray, or steel blue. Labels: uncountable Example: Falkenhayn gave...to Jane a steel glacé silk dress. Example: It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s chest in his sleep. 15. Extreme hardness or resilience. Labels: countable, figuratively, uncountable