a. Also 7 fusable. [a. F. fusible, ad. mod.L. *fūsibilis, f. L. fūs-, ppl. stem of fundĕre to pour, melt, FUSE.] Capable of being fused or melted. Fusible metal (see quot. 1853). Fusible plug (see quot. 1874).
c. 1386. Chaucer, Can. Yeom. Prol. & T., 303. Also of hir induration, Oiles, ablucions, and metal fusible To tellen al, wolde passen any bible.
1605. Timme, Quersit., II. i. 104. Salt is fusible.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., III. 203. Sand affordeth matter for glasse, becoming fusable with the heate of the fornace.
1685. Boyle, Effects of Mot., iv. 36. The burning fluid, determined, and perhaps excited by this wind, acquires so great a force, that, as we have often tried, it may be made, in a few minutes, to melt not onely the more fusible Metals, but silver, or even copper it self.
1747. Hooson, Miner’s Dict., O j b. That called Potter’s Ore … is so frim and fusible that [etc.].
1812. Sir H. Davy, Chem. Philos., 297. These mixtures are more fusible than either of their constituents.
1844–57. G. Bird, Urin. Deposits (ed. 5), 472. The most contorted and irregularly figured calculus is the triple or fusible, it being often a complete cast of the pelvis and calyces of the kidney.
1853. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 46. The fusible metal consisting of 8 parts of bismuth, 5 of lead, and 3 of tin … melts at the heat of boiling water or 212° Fahr. though the melting point deduced from the mean of its components should be 514°.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 931/1. Fusible plug. One placed in the skin of a steam-boiler, so as to be melted and allow the discharge of the contents when a dangerous heat is reached.
1884. Manch. Exam., 1 Dec., 5/4. The explosion … was partly due … to a defective fusible plug.
Hence Fusibleness, the quality of being fusible.
1684. Boyle, Porousn. Anim. & Solid Bod., viii. 130. He had reduced … real Gold, to that degree of Fusibleness and subtlety, that … the finer part of the Metal would sweat through his Glasses.
