Iron \I"ron\ ([imac]"[u^]rn), n. [OE. iren, AS. [=i]ren, [=i]sen, [=i]sern; akin to D. ijzer, OS. [=i]sarn, OHG. [=i]sarn, [=i]san, G. eisen, Icel. [=i]sarn, j[=a]rn, Sw. & Dan. jern, and perh. to E. ice; cf. Ir. iarann, W. haiarn, Armor. houarn.]

1. (Chem.) The most common and most useful metallic element, being of almost universal occurrence, usually in the form of an oxide (as hematite, magnetite, etc.), or a hydrous oxide (as limonite, turgite, etc.). It is reduced on an enormous scale in three principal forms; viz., cast iron, steel, and wrought iron. Iron usually appears dark brown, from oxidation or impurity, but when pure, or on a fresh surface, is a gray or white metal. It is easily oxidized (rusted) by moisture, and is attacked by many corrosive agents. Symbol Fe (Latin Ferrum). Atomic weight 55.9.

1. In magnetic properties, it is superior to all other substances.

Note: The value of iron is largely due to the facility with which it can be worked. Thus, when heated it is malleable and ductile, and can be easily welded and forged at a high temperature. As cast iron, it is easily fusible; as steel, is very tough, and (when tempered) very hard and elastic. Chemically, iron is grouped with cobalt and nickel. Steel is a variety of iron containing more carbon than wrought iron, but less that cast iron. It is made either from wrought iron, by roasting in a packing of carbon (cementation) or from cast iron, by burning off the impurities in a Bessemer converter (then called Bessemer steel), or directly from the iron ore (as in the Siemens rotatory and generating furnace).

2. An instrument or utensil made of iron; -- chiefly in composition; as, a flatiron, a smoothing iron, etc.

My young soldier, put up your iron. --Shak.

3. pl. Fetters; chains; handcuffs; manacles.

Four of the sufferers were left to rot in irons. --Macaulay.

4. Strength; power; firmness; inflexibility; as, to rule with a rod of iron.

Bar iron. See Wrought iron (below).

Bog iron, bog ore; limonite. See Bog ore, under Bog.

Cast iron (Metal.), an impure variety of iron, containing from three to six percent of carbon, part of which is united with a part of the iron, as a carbide, and the rest is uncombined, as graphite. It there is little free carbon, the product is white iron; if much of the carbon has separated as graphite, it is called gray iron. See also Cast iron, in the Vocabulary.

Fire irons. See under Fire, n.

Gray irons. See under Fire, n.

Gray iron. See Cast iron (above).

It irons (Naut.), said of a sailing vessel, when, in tacking, she comes up head to the wind and will not fill away on either tack.

Magnetic iron. See Magnetite.

Malleable iron (Metal.), iron sufficiently pure or soft to be capable of extension under the hammer; also, specif., a kind of iron produced by removing a portion of the carbon or other impurities from cast iron, rendering it less brittle, and to some extent malleable.

Meteoric iron (Chem.), iron forming a large, and often the chief, ingredient of meteorites. It invariably contains a small amount of nickel and cobalt. Cf. Meteorite.

Pig iron, the form in which cast iron is made at the blast furnace, being run into molds, called pigs.

Reduced iron. See under Reduced.

Specular iron. See Hematite.

Too many irons in the fire, too many objects requiring the attention at once.

White iron. See Cast iron (above).

Wrought iron (Metal.), the purest form of iron commonly known in the arts, containing only about half of one per cent of carbon. It is made either directly from the ore, as in the Catalan forge or bloomery, or by purifying (puddling) cast iron in a reverberatory furnace or refinery. It is tough, malleable, and ductile. When formed into bars, it is called bar iron.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

White elm (Bot.), a majestic tree of North America (Ulmus Americana), the timber of which is much used for hubs of wheels, and for other purposes.

White ensign. See Saint George's ensign, under Saint.

White feather, a mark or symbol of cowardice. See To show the white feather, under Feather, n.

White fir (Bot.), a name given to several coniferous trees of the Pacific States, as Abies grandis, and A. concolor.

White flesher (Zo["o]l.), the ruffed grouse. See under Ruffed. [Canada]

White frost. See Hoarfrost.

White game (Zo["o]l.), the white ptarmigan.

White garnet (Min.), leucite.

White grass (Bot.), an American grass (Leersia Virginica) with greenish-white pale[ae].

White grouse. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) The white ptarmigan.
   (b) The prairie chicken. [Local, U. S.]

White grub (Zo["o]l.), the larva of the June bug and other allied species. These grubs eat the roots of grasses and other plants, and often do much damage.

White hake (Zo["o]l.), the squirrel hake. See under Squirrel.

White hawk, or kite (Zo["o]l.), the hen harrier.

White heat, the temperature at which bodies become incandescent, and appear white from the bright light which they emit.

White hellebore (Bot.), a plant of the genus Veratrum (V. album) See Hellebore, 2.

White herring, a fresh, or unsmoked, herring, as distinguished from a red, or cured, herring. [R.]

--Shak.

White hoolet (Zo["o]l.), the barn owl. [Prov. Eng.]

White horses (Naut.), white-topped waves; whitecaps.

The White House. See under House.

White ibis (Zo["o]l.), an American ibis (Guara alba) having the plumage pure white, except the tips of the wings, which are black. It inhabits tropical America and the Southern United States. Called also Spanish curlew.

White iron.
   (a) Thin sheets of iron coated with tin; tinned iron.
   (b) A hard, silvery-white cast iron containing a large proportion of combined carbon.

White iron pyrites (Min.), marcasite.

White land, a tough clayey soil, of a whitish hue when dry, but blackish after rain. [Eng.]

White lark (Zo["o]l.), the snow bunting.

White lead.
   (a) A carbonate of lead much used in painting, and for other purposes; ceruse.
   (b) (Min.) Native lead carbonate; cerusite.

White leather, buff leather; leather tanned with alum and salt.

White leg (Med.), milk leg. See under Milk.

White lettuce (Bot.), rattlesnake root. See under Rattlesnake.

White lie. See under Lie.

White light.
   (a) (Physics) Light having the different colors in the same proportion as in the light coming directly from the sun, without having been decomposed, as by passing through a prism. See the Note under Color, n., 1.
   (b) A kind of firework which gives a brilliant white illumination for signals, etc.

White lime, a solution or preparation of lime for whitewashing; whitewash.

White line (Print.), a void space of the breadth of a line, on a printed page; a blank line.

White meat.
   (a) Any light-colored flesh, especially of poultry.
   (b) Food made from milk or eggs, as butter, cheese, etc.

Driving their cattle continually with them, and feeding only upon their milk and white meats. --Spenser.

White merganser (Zo["o]l.), the smew.

White metal.
   (a) Any one of several white alloys, as pewter, britannia, etc.
   (b) (Metal.) A fine grade of copper sulphide obtained at a certain stage in copper smelting.

White miller. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) The common clothes moth.
   (b) A common American bombycid moth (Spilosoma Virginica) which is pure white with a few small black spots; -- called also ermine moth, and virgin moth. See Woolly bear, under Woolly.

White money, silver money.

White mouse (Zo["o]l.), the albino variety of the common mouse.

White mullet (Zo["o]l.), a silvery mullet (Mugil curema) ranging from the coast of the United States to Brazil; -- called also blue-back mullet, and liza.

White nun (Zo["o]l.), the smew; -- so called from the white crest and the band of black feathers on the back of its head, which give the appearance of a hood.

White oak. (Bot.) See under Oak.

White owl. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) The snowy owl.
   (b) The barn owl.

White partridge (Zo["o]l.), the white ptarmigan.

White perch. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) A North American fresh-water bass (Morone Americana) valued as a food fish.
   (b) The croaker, or fresh-water drum.
   (c) Any California surf fish.

White pine. (Bot.) See the Note under Pine.

White poplar (Bot.), a European tree (Populus alba) often cultivated as a shade tree in America; abele.

White poppy (Bot.), the opium-yielding poppy. See Poppy.

White powder, a kind of gunpowder formerly believed to exist, and to have the power of exploding without noise. [Obs.]

A pistol charged with white powder. --Beau. & Fl.

White precipitate. (Old Chem.) See under Precipitate.

White rabbit. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) The American northern hare in its winter pelage.
   (b) An albino rabbit.

White rent,
   (a) (Eng. Law) Formerly, rent payable in silver; -- opposed to black rent. See Blackmail, n., 3.
   (b) A rent, or duty, of eight pence, payable yearly by every tinner in Devon and Cornwall to the Duke of Cornwall, as lord of the soil. [Prov. Eng.]

White rhinoceros. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) The one-horned, or Indian, rhinoceros (Rhinoceros Indicus). See Rhinoceros.
   (b) The umhofo.

White ribbon, the distinctive badge of certain organizations for the promotion of temperance or of moral purity; as, the White-ribbon Army.

White rope (Naut.), untarred hemp rope.

White rot. (Bot.)
   (a) Either of several plants, as marsh pennywort and butterwort, which were thought to produce the disease called rot in sheep.
   (b) A disease of grapes. See White rot, under Rot.

White sage (Bot.), a white, woolly undershrub (Eurotia lanata) of Western North America; -- called also winter fat.

White salmon (Zo["o]l.), the silver salmon.

White salt, salt dried and calcined; decrepitated salt.

White scale (Zo["o]l.), a scale insect (Aspidiotus Nerii) injurious to the orange tree. See Orange scale, under Orange.

White shark (Zo["o]l.), a species of man-eating shark. See under Shark.

White softening. (Med.) See Softening of the brain, under Softening.

White spruce. (Bot.) See Spruce, n., 1.

White squall (Naut.), a sudden gust of wind, or furious blow, which comes up without being marked in its approach otherwise than by whitecaps, or white, broken water, on the surface of the sea.

White staff, the badge of the lord high treasurer of England. --Macaulay.

White stork (Zo["o]l.), the common European stork.

White sturgeon. (Zo["o]l.) See Shovelnose
   (d) .

White sucker. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) The common sucker.
   (b) The common red horse (Moxostoma macrolepidotum).

White swelling (Med.), a chronic swelling of the knee, produced by a strumous inflammation of the synovial membranes of the kneejoint and of the cancellar texture of the end of the bone forming the kneejoint; -- applied also to a lingering chronic swelling of almost any kind.

White tombac. See Tombac.

White trout (Zo["o]l.), the white weakfish, or silver squeteague (Cynoscion nothus), of the Southern United States.

White vitriol (Chem.), hydrous sulphate of zinc. See White vitriol, under Vitriol.

White wagtail (Zo["o]l.), the common, or pied, wagtail.

White wax, beeswax rendered white by bleaching.

White whale (Zo["o]l.), the beluga.

White widgeon (Zo["o]l.), the smew.

White wine. any wine of a clear, transparent color, bordering on white, as Madeira, sherry, Lisbon, etc.; -- distinguished from wines of a deep red color, as port and Burgundy. ``White wine of Lepe.'' --Chaucer.

White witch, a witch or wizard whose supernatural powers are supposed to be exercised for good and beneficent purposes. --Addison. --Cotton Mather.

White wolf. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) A light-colored wolf (Canis laniger) native of Thibet; -- called also chanco, golden wolf, and Thibetan wolf.
   (b) The albino variety of the gray wolf.

White wren (Zo["o]l.), the willow warbler; -- so called from the color of the under parts.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)