a. Forms: 7 colsar, col-, coleshire, -shore, coldshare, -shore, 7–8 -shire, (8 coal short, 9 cold-shear), 8– cold-short. [This, and the parallel RED-SHORT (also, in later use, hot-short), point by their early forms to adoption c. 1600 from Scandinavian, and prob. from Swedish, metallurgical terminology. Cf. Sw. kallskör, Norw., Da. koldskjör (with the parallel Sw. rödskör, Norw., Da. rödskjör, ‘red-short’); the second element is skör, skjör, ‘brittle, friable,’ pronounced ſör; thence the Eng. -sar, -share, -shore, -shear, -shire, afterwards altered to -short, which has also the sense ‘brittle, friable,’ in dial. and later general use, esp. in reference to pastry, as in short-bread. Cf. HOT-SHORT, RED-SHORT.]
Said of iron: Brittle in its cold state.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 514. In another [place] the mettall is brittle and short [margin Which our smiths cal Colsar yron].
1637. Vernatt & Whitmore, Specif. of Patent, No. 113. Good and merchantable tough iron and colshire iron [elsewhere coleshire, bis].
1665. D. Dudley, Metallum Martis (1854), 31. Nay, the Ploughman often breaks his Share point off if it be made of coldshare Iron.
1674. I. Sturdie, Iron Ore, i. in Phil. Trans., XVII. 696. Some makes Coldshire-Iron, that is, such as is brittle when it is cold; another sort makes Redshire.
1681. Yarranton, Eng. Impr., II. 155. The Colshore-Iron which is made in Staffordshire.
1730. Beware of Bubbles, 2. Mr. Wood in his paper says there are four sorts of Iron viz. Redshort, Coldshort, Best-tough, and Ordinary-tough.
1773. Jesson & Wright, Specif. of Patent, No. 1054. 2. When the metal appears to be red short or coal short.
1794. S. Williams, Hist. Vermont, 316. The iron is mostly of the coldshire kind.
1795. Pearson, in Phil. Trans., LXXXV. 342. The presence of phosphoric acid has been shown to be the occasion of the variety of iron, named cold short; which is brittle when cold, but not when ignited.
1864. Percy, Iron & Steel, 64. Phosphorus even in small quantity has a decided effect upon … iron at ordinary temperatures, rendering it cold-short, i.e. brittle while cold.
fig. 1832. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), III. 166. His feelings have been hammered, till they are cold-short.
Hence Cold-shortness.
1887. J. A. Phillips, Metallurgy, 323. The characteristic of Cleveland iron is cold-shortness.
