a.
1. Stout-hearted, courageous.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. iv. 2. 10. Dauid was not so steeleharted [L. ferreus], but that his aduersitie dyd cast hym intoo piteowse anguish of mynd.
1833. Nyren, Yng. Cricketer’s Tutor (1902), 78. A handful of steel-hearted soldiers.
2. Hard-hearted; cruel, unfeeling; obdurate, inflexible.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. viii. 3. 23. Against the steele-harted despysers of God [L. contra ferreos Dei contemptores].
1692. Washington, trans. Milton’s Def. People, Pref. 11. As for those fierce, those steel hearted men [L. istos feros ac ferreos].
1818. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXIII. 378. Experienced and well-tried and steel-hearted men whom they call Judges.
1897. E. Conybeare, Hist. Cambridgesh., 128. Who could be so steel-hearted that that woman could not bend him to her wishes?
