[in sense 1, ad. Sp. Castellano pertaining to the Spanish province of Castile (Castella, so called from the numerous forts erected by Alfonso I. for its defence)].
1. Of or pertaining to Castile; a native of Castile; the language of that province, hence, standard Spanish, as distinct from any provincial dialect.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 393. The old Castilians are laborious.
1822. K. Digby, Broadst. Hon., I. 219. Willing to adopt the Castilian maxim, that ‘every man is the son of his own works.’
1860. All Y. Round, No. 68. 419. The Castilian is driving all the provincial idioms of Spain from the field.
1867. Lady Herbert, Impress. Spain, 122. Whose pure Castilian accent made his Spanish perfectly intelligible.
† 2. A Spanish gold coin worth about 5s. sterling. Obs.
1526. Eden, Decades W. Ind. (Arb.), 238. Barres of golde … of such byggenesse that sum of them way more then two hundreth Castilians [ed. 1577 Castelan] or ducades of golde.
[1846. Prescott, Ferd. II., ix. 463. Two hundred thousand castellanos of gold went down in the ships with Bobadilla.]
3. Castilian furnace: a lead-smelting furnace first used in Spain (but invented by an Englishman named Goundry), which is specially adapted for the treatment of ores of low produce. It is arranged so as to run off a constant stream of slag into cast-iron wagons which succeed each other as they are filled.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 62. Ibid., 74. The slag-hearth … might in many cases be advantageously exchanged for the Castilian furnace.
