Steely

a. Also 6 stely. [f. STEEL sb.¹ + -Y.]

  1.  Of or belonging to steel, made or consisting of steel.

c. 1586.  C’tess Pembroke, Ps. CV. v. His soule was clog’d with steely boultes of care.

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., I. xi. 22. The steely head stucke fast still in his flesh.

1672.  Newton, in Phil. Trans., VII. 4032. If the steely matter imployed … be more strongly reflective than this which I have used.

1726.  Pope, Odyss., XXII. 300. Again the foe discharge the steely show’r.

1765.  A. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 557. The flowers of rhetoric, when aptly fitted on, like the feathers to an arrow, give force to the steely points of argumentation.

1807.  Crabbe, Par. Reg., I. 748. Steel, through opposing plates, the magnet draws, And steelly atoms culls from dust and straws.

1861.  Ld. Lytton & Fane, Tannhäuser, 58. For every sword Flash’d bare upon a sudden; and over these … the sinking sun Stream’d lurid, lighting up that steely sea.

  † b.  Of a blow: Given with a sword or spear.

1562.  Legh, Armory (1597), 114. Such as with steelie strokes haue stablished stout stomackes.

1647.  N. Ward, Simple Cobler, 69. Break not with Steely blows, what oyle should melt.

  2.  Resembling steel in appearance, color, hardness, or some other quality.

1596.  Edward III., III. v. 68. The boystrous sea Of warres deuouring gulphes and steely rocks.

1601.  Shaks., All’s Well, I. i. 114. When Vertues steely bones Lookes bleake i’th cold wind.

1824.  Hood, Two Swans, 239. When fiercely drops adown that cruel Snake—His steely scales a fearful rustling make.

1874.  Symonds, Sk. Italy & Greece (1898), I. i. 21. The hill-tops standing hard against the steely heavens.

  b.  Of iron: see quots.

1839.  Ure, Dict. Arts, 681. Native iron of three kinds: pure, nickeliferous, and steely.

1869.  Rankine, Machine & Hand-tools, App. 57. The term ‘steely iron’ or ‘semi-steel,’ may be applied to compounds of iron with less than 0·5 per cent. of carbon.

  c.  Of corn, esp. barley: Very hard and brittle.

1580.  Tusser, Husb. (1878), 48. Wheat somtime is steelie or burnt as it growes.

1742.  Lond. & Country Brewer, I. (ed. 4), 5. The smooth plump corn imbibing the Water more kindly, when the lean and steely Barley will not naturally.

1817.  Keatinge, Trav., II. 30. The wheat here is of a very dry quality, nearly approaching to what our millers term steely.

1891.  Times, 27 Oct., 12/2. It was a bit unripe and ‘steely,’ having been probably harvested in too great a hurry.

1897.  Jrnl. Roy. Agric. Soc., March, 75. Above all it [this barley] is invariably ‘steely,’ that is to say, when cut transversely it shows a yellow or flinty rather than a white and mealy surface to the fracture.

  † 3.  Of a liquid: Having an infusion of steel. Obs.

1580.  Frampton, Monardes’ Joyf. News, Dial. Iron, II. 151 b. Aliabas … doeth say that the water that hath quenched hot steele is hot and dry…. Auicen … saith that the steelie water doth resolue.

  4.  Of a person, his qualities, etc.: a. Hard and cold as steel, unimpressionable, inflexible, obdurate.

1509.  Fisher, Seven Penit. Ps. cii. Wks. (1876), 187. O tough & stely hertes, o herte more hard than flynt or other stone.

a. 1586.  Sidney, Arcadia, II. iii. (1912), 164. That she would unarme her hart of that steely resistance against the sweet blowes of Love.

1748.  Richardson, Clarissa (1811), VIII. 398. The steely forehead and flinty heart of such a libertine.

1788.  Johnson, Lett., I. cxiv. 239. But you never mind him nor me, till time forces conviction into your steely bosom.

1865.  Amelia B. Edwards, Half a Million, xxx. The steely light so rarely seen there, flashed into Abel Keckwitch’s eyes.

1868.  Farrar, Seekers, I. x. (1875), 115. This awful giant-shape of steely feminine cruelty.

  b.  In physical sense: Strong as steel.

1648.  J. Beaumont, Psyche, XV. xxxiv. Or heav’n-commanding Joshua earth become, Or steely Sampson turn to rotten Clay.

1894.  F. M. Crawford, Ralstons (1897), 117. He’s handsome, too, and straight, and steely, and formidable.

1898.  ‘H. S. Merriman,’ Roden’s Corner, xix. 205. He was long and lithe, of a steely strength which he had never tried.

  5.  Comb. a. with names of colors, as steely-blue, etc. b. in parasynthetic formations, as steely-hearted, † -stomached, -tongued adjs.

1867.  Morris, Jason, I. 381. The piled up crowd [of clouds] Began to turn from *steely blue to grey.

1878.  Smiles, Robt. Dick, iv. 27. The black or steely-blue eyes of the Celts.

1884.  Bazaar, 24 Dec., 675/2. The rest of the plumage is *steely grey.

1571.  Golding, Calvin on Ps. xxx. 12. 111. He was not so blockish or *steely harted [L. ferreum], but that hee moorned in heauinesse and sorow.

1876.  Farrar, Marlb. Serm., v. 49. Even the steely-hearted murderess in the splendid tragedy … loves her aged father.

1604.  T. Wright, Passions, V. 184. A *steelie stomackt boore.

1828.  P. Cunningham, N. S. Wales, II. 9. Some of the most *steely-tongued will sometimes halloo in at the window.

1903.  Daily Chron., 25 Nov., 6/6. The flash being *steely-white and very subdued.

  5.  quasi-adv. In a steely manner.

1621.  Bp. Mountagu, Diatribæ, 147. It is more than stony or steely hard, to say that his substance was at all Tithed.

1871.  G. Macdonald, Songs of Winter Days, II. Wks. Fancy & Imag., III. 83. Heed not the winds that steely blow.