steel

• steele (obsolete)

• enPR: stēl, IPA^(key): /stiːl/, [stiːɫ]

• Audio (US):

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• Homophones: steal, stele
• Rhymes: -iːl

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”).^[1] Compare Scots stele, Yola stehli.

steel (countable and uncountable, plural steels)

2. (countable, uncountable) An artificial metal produced from iron, harder and more elastic than elemental iron; used figuratively as a symbol of hardness.
   • c. 725, Corpus Gloss., published 1431:

     Ocearium stæli.

   • c. 825, Epinal Gloss., section 49:

     Accearium steeli.

   • c. 1275, Laȝamon, Brut, 12916:

     Þe alle þine leomen wule to-draȝen. þeh þu weore stel al.

   • c. 1473, Raoul Le Fèvre, translated by William Caxton, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, section I:

     Employeng the steell of his swerd the most best wyse that in hym was possible.

   • c. 1480, St. Mary Magdalen, 408 in 1896, W. M. Metcalfe, Legends Saints Sc. Dial., I 267:

     Weman...with wordis cane rycht wele our-cum mene hard as stele.

   • 1601, Pliny, translated by P. Holland, Hist. World, II xxxiv xiv 514:

     The purest part thereof [of iron ore] which in Latine is called Nucleus ferri, i. the kernell or heart of the yron (and it is that which we call steele)

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 15:12:

     Shall yron breake the Northren yron, and the steele?

     (The Hebrew word is נחשת meaning copper. "Bow of steele" occurs in three places translating קשת נחושה.)

   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], line 33:

     ...Like a man of Steele.

   • 1839, A. Ure, Dict. Arts, published 1172:

     The bars are exposed to two or three successive processes of cementation, and are hence said to be twice or thrice converted into steels.

   • 1946, Thorpe's Dictionary of Applied Chemistry, 4th edition, VII 47 1:

     Steel may be roughly defined as an alloy of iron and carbon containing up to 1.7% carbon, all of the carbon being in the combined condition. A second definition, distinguishing it from cast or wrought iron, is that it has been produced in the molten condition, and a third states that steel can be hardened by quenching from a suitably high temperature. There are...certain exceptions to all these definitions.

   • 1976 Jul, Scientific American, 68 2:

     For the iron to be made into steel (defined as iron with a carefully controlled carbon content of 1.7 percent or less) the sulfur, the silicon, and the excess carbon must be removed.

3. (countable) Any item made of this metal, particularly including:
   1. Bladed or pointed weapons, as swords, javelins, daggers.
      • c. 1250, The Owl & the Nightengale, published 1030:

        For heom ne may halter ne bridel Bringe from here wode wyse, Ne mon mid stele ne mid ire.

      • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], line 35:

        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.

      • 1712, Lord Shaftesbury, Characteristicks, III 115:

        But who wou'd dream that out of abundant Charity and Brotherly Love shou'd come Steel, Fire, Gibbets, Rods.

      • 1892, Rudyard Kipling, Barrack-room Ballads, section 139:

        They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now; Out cutlasses and board!

      • 1905, Saxo Grammaticus, translated by Oliver Elton, The Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus, section II:

        While one man was beating off the swords, the waters stole up silently and took him. Contrariwise, another was struggling with the waves, when the steel came up and encompassed him. The flowing waters were befouled with the gory spray. Thus the Ruthenians were conquered...

   2. A piece used for striking sparks from flint.
      • c. 1220, Bestiary, section 535:

        Of ston mid stel in ðe tunder wel to brennen one ðis wunder.

      • 1660, Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-mechanicall, XIV 89:

        The Cock falling with its wonted violence upon the Steel.

   3. Armor.
      • c. 1330, Sir Tristrem, L 3324:

        Þai gun hem boþe armi In iren and stiel þat tide.

      • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], page 33:

        In compleate steele.

      • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC, page 421:

        She that has [chastity], is clad in compleat steel.

   4. A honing steel, a tool used to sharpen or hone metal blades.
      • 1541 in 1844, J. Stuart, Extracts of the Council Register of Aberdeen, I 176:

        The steill to scherp the schawing jrne.

      • 1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC:

        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...

   5. (sewing) Pieces used to strengthen, support, or expand an item of clothing.
      • 1608, G. Markham et al., Dumbe Knight, section I:

        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?

      • 1904 February 22, Daily Chron, 5 4:

        I suppose the bullet must have struck the steels in my corsets.

   6. (dialectal) A flat iron.
      • 1638, J. Taylor, Bull, Beare, & Horse, C5:

        One of them having occasion to use a Steele, smoothing Iron, or some such kinde of Laundry Instrument.

   7. (sewing, dialectal) A sewing needle; a knitting needle; a sharp metal stylus.
      • 1785, William Cowper, Task, IV 165:

        The threaded steel...Flies swiftly.

   8. (printing) An engraving plate:
      • 1843, J. Ballantine, The gaberlunzie's wallet. With numerous illustrations on steel and wood.:
      • 1887 June 11, Athenæum, 779 1:

        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.

   9. Projectiles.
      • 1898 June 1, Westminster Gazette, 5 1:

        The crews at the port batteries were pumping steel at the enemy.

   10. (sewing) A fringe of beads or decoration of this metal.
       • 1899 January 26, Daily News, 6 3:

         A trailing skirt embroidered in what is termed fine steel.

   11. (music, guitar) A type of slide used while playing the steel guitar.
4. (uncountable, medicine, obsolete) Medicinal consumption of this metal; chalybeate medicine; (eventually) any iron or iron-treated water consumed as a medical treatment.
   • 1649, H. Hammond, Christians Obligations, X 253:

     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.

   • 1704, J. Harris, Lexicon Technicum, volume L:

     Steel is not so good as Iron for Medicinal Operation.

   • 1712 September 18, Journal to Stella, Jonathan Swift, II 558:

     The Doctor tells me I must go into a Course of Steel, tho I have not the Spleen.

   • 1866, Princess Alice, Mem., section 158:

     I...am really only kept alive by steel.

5. (uncountable, colors) The gray hue of this metal; steel-gray, or steel blue.
   • 1851 Dec 28, E. Ruskin, letter in 1965, M. Lutyens, Effie in Venice, II 236:

     Falkenhayn gave...to Jane a steel glacé silk dress.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 132”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     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.

6. (figurative) Extreme hardness or resilience.

steel (not comparable)

1. Made of steel.
   • mid-14th century, Alisaunder, 416:

     Strained in stel ger on steedes of might.

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], line 229:

     The tyrant custome...Hath made the flinty and steele Cooch of warre, My thrice driuen bed of downe.

   • 1829 May 2, [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Anne of Geierstein; or, The Maiden of the Mist. […], volume III, Edinburgh:  […] [Ballantyne and Company] for Cadell and Co., […]; London: Simpkin and Marshall, […], →OCLC, page 78:

     I will grasp the mountain-hedgehog, prickles and all, with my steel-gauntlet.

   • 1976, J. Wheeler-Bennett, Friends, Enemies, & Sovereigns, V, 156:

     King Peter attributed his father's, King Alexander's, death to the fact that...he had not worn his steel-mesh bullet-proof shirt.

2. Similar to steel in color, strength, or the like; steely.
   • c. 1560, Vergil, translated by T. Phaer, Nyne Fyrst Books of the Eneidos, section X:

     Wher neuer cessing soyle doth steelebright stuff send out from mines.

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 133”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

     Prison my heart in thy steele bosomes warde.

3. (business) Of or belonging to the manufacture or trade in steel.
   • 1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book VII.] LVI.”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], 1st tome, London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC, page 188:

     [T]he discoverie of the yron and steele mines.

   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter VI, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume III (The Guillotine), London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, book V (Terror the Order of the Day), page 327:

     From their new dungeons at Chantilly, Aristocrats may hear the rustle of our new steel furnace there.

   • 1976 January 24, National Observer, 1, 1:

     East Chicago, Ind., a smoky Lake Michigan steel town that isn't exactly famous for its esthetic splendor even when the sun shines.

4. (medicine, obsolete) Containing steel.
   • 1652, J. French, York-shire Spaw, X, 92:

     To mix some Sugar of steel, or steel wine with the first glass.

   • 1675, G. Harvey, Dis. of London, XXIV, 264:

     I have found a singular Virtue in Steel drops, præpared after my Mode.

   • 1713 February 17, Journal to Stella, Jonathan Swift, II, 622:

     I...take some nasty steel drops, & may head has been bettr.

5. (printing) Engraved on steel.
   • 1880, Mark Twain, letter:

     The best picture I have had yet is the steel frontis-piece to my new book.

steel (third-person singular simple present steels, present participle steeling, simple past and past participle steeled) (transitive)

1. (literally) To treat or furnish with or transform into steel.
   1. To edge, cover, or point with steel.
      • c. 1240, “Sawles Warde”, in The Cotton Homilies, section 253:

        Hure þolien ant a beoren hare unirude duntes wið mealles istelet.

        (please add an English translation of this quotation)

      • 1651, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, XXVIII Sermons Preacht at Golden Grove, Being for the Summer Half-year, XIX 248:

        When God...draws aside his curtain, and shows his arsenal and his armory, full of arrows steeled with wrath.

      • 1831, John Holland, A Treatise on the Progressive Improvement and Present State of the Manufactures in Metal, I 220:

        It was the common notion...that the art of steeling tools in the highest degree of perfection was certainly lost to the moderns.

   2. (obsolete, of mirrors) To back with steel.
      • c. 1630, John Donne, Sermons, VI 289:

        Nay, a Crystall glasse will not show a man his face, except it be steeled, except it be darkned on the backside.

   3. (obsolete, medicine) To treat a liquid with steel for medicinal purposes.
      • 1657, J. Hall, translated by J. Cooke, Cures, section 117:

        She drunk her drink steeled, with which she was cured.

   4. To electroplate an item (particularly an engraving plate) with a layer of iron.
      • 1880, P. G. Hamerton, Etching & Etchers, 3rd edition, section 342:

        My large dry-point,...called Two Stumps of Driftwood, gave 1000 copies (after being steeled) without perceptible wearing.

   5. To sharpen with a honing steel.
   6. To steelify; to turn iron into steel.
      • 1853, Jrnl. Franklin Inst., CXXV 303:

        By passing an electric current thus through the bars the operation of steeling is much hastened.

      • 1977 Oct, Scientific American, 127 1:

        It seems evident that by the beginning of the 10th century B.C. blacksmiths were intentionally steeling iron.

2. (figuratively) To cause to resemble steel.
   1. To harden or strengthen; to nerve or make obdurate; to fortify against.
      • 1581, Homer, translated by A. Hall, 10 Bks. Iliades, VI 110:

        But stil he was so steelde With heart so good, as victor he dead left them in the field.

      • 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC:

        Giue me my heart...O giue it me lest thy hard heart do steele it, And being steeld, soft sighes can neuer graue it.

      • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], line 148:

        Ile in to vrge his hatred more to Clarence, With lies well steeld with weighty arguments.

      • 1796, F. Burney, Camilla, II iv vi 370:

        Steel yourself, then, firmly to withstand attacks from the cruel and unfeeling.

      • 1882, F. W. Farrar, Early Days Christianity, II 380:

        The rich experience of a long life steeled in the victorious struggle with every unchristian element.

   2. (literary or poetic) To give (something) the appearance of steel.
      • 1807, William Wordsworth, Sonn. to Liberty, II v:

        And lo! those waters, steeled By breezeless air to smoothest polish, yield A vivid repetition of the stars.

3. (dialectal) To press with a flat iron.
   • 1746, Exmoor Scolding, 3rd edition, II 14:

     Tha hasn't tha Sense to stile thy own Dressing.

• (harden): See also Thesaurus:harden
• (strengthen): See also Thesaurus:strengthen

• steel up
• unsteel
• unsteeled

From French Bastille (a French prison).^[2]

steel

1. (UK, crime, slang, obsolete) Coldbath Fields Prison in London, closed in 1877.
   • 1862, Havelock Ellis, The Criminal, page 162:

     I was lugged before the beak, who gave me six doss in the steel. [...] six months in the Bastille (the old House of Corrections), Coldbath Fields.

   • 1866, George Augustus Sala, Edmund Hodgson Yates, Temple Bar, volume 16, page 507:

     He said he had been in the “steel” (Coldbath Fields Prison) eight times.

   • 1879, Macmillan's Magazine, volume 40, page 502:

     This time I got two moon for assaulting the reelers when canon. For this I went to the Steel (Bastile^[sic] — Coldbath Fields Prison), having a new suit of clobber on me and about fifty blow in my brigh (pocket).

• 1811, Lexicon Balatronicum: Steel, the house of correction.
• 1819, J. H. Vaux, New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Mem.: Bastile, generally called for shortnes, the steel a cant name for the House of Correction, Cold-Bath-Fields, London.

• Teles, Leets, stélé, Teels, Elets, sleet, leets, stele, stelè, teles

From Dutch stelen, from Middle Dutch stelen.

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steel (present steel, present participle stelende, past participle gesteel)

1. to steal

• gestole (verbal adjective; rare)

• IPA^(key): /steːl/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: steel
• Rhymes: -eːl

From Middle Dutch stēle, from Old Dutch *stelo, from Proto-West Germanic *stelō, *stalu, from Proto-Germanic *staluz, *steluz (“post, trunk, stump, stem, tail”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to put, place”). Cognate with dialectal English steal (“stem, stalk”), Scots steel, stiel (“stalk”).

steel m (plural stelen, diminutive steeltje n)

1. stem (of a plant)

   Synonym: stengel

2. handle (of a broom, a pan)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

steel

1. inflection of stelen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

• leest, sleet, slete, stele