| 释义 |
crucible, n.|ˈkruːsɪb(ə)l|
Forms: 5 corusible, (kressibulle), 7– crucible, (7 crus-, chrus-, 8 cruzible).
[ad. med.L. crucibulum, -bolum, orig. a night-lamp, later a melting pot for metals—the only English sense.
App. a deriv. of L. crux, crucis Cross: cf. the kindred words It. crociuolo, OF. croiseul, later F. croiset, creuset, f. It. croce, F. croix, and see Du Cange, Littré, Hatzfeld, who suggest for the original sense ‘lamp with crossed wicks giving 4 flames’, but this is doubtful: cf. crusell. A 15th c. Vocabulary in Wright-Wülcker 576/9 has ‘Crassipulum, Crassipularium, Crucibolum, a Cresset’, where the two synonyms appear to be derivatives of crassus fat, crassa grease; but their association with crucibolum appears to be due to popular etymology.]
1. A vessel, usually of earthenware, made to endure great heat, used for fusing metals, etc.; a melting-pot.
1460–70Bk. Quintessence 9 In þe corusible ȝe schal fynde þe gold calcyned and reducid into erþe. 1495Nottingham Rec. III. 284 Item kressibulles iiijd. 1605Timme Quersit. ii. iii. 113 Salt-peter remaineth liquid and fusible in a red hote crucible. 1611Cotgr., Creuset, a cruzible, cruzet, or cruet; a little earthen pot wherein Goldsmithes melt their siluer, etc. 1776Adam Smith W.N. I. i. iv. 26 A part of the metal is melted in the crucible. 1800Henry Epit. Chem. (1808) 5 Crucibles..are most commonly made of a mixture of fire-clay and sand, occasionally with the addition of plumbago. 1872J. Yeats Techn. Hist. Comm. 51 The gold was fused in clay crucibles.
b. A hollow or basin at the bottom of a furnace to collect the molten metal.
1864in Webster. 1881in Raymond Mining Gloss.
2. fig. Used of any severe test or trial.
c1645Howell Lett. (1688) II. 334 In this Limbec and Crusible of Affliction. 1796H. Hunter tr. St.-Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) III. 332 A ship is the crucible in which morals are put to the test. 1884A. S. Swan Dorothea Kirke xiv. 128 So in the crucible of pain we are purified. 1887Spectator 21 May 683/2 He had lived through the Mutiny, he remembered when all India was in the crucible.
3. attrib. and Comb., as crucible-earth; crucible-steel, cast steel.
1664Evelyn Kal. Hort. (1729) 232 Pipes..made of the best Crucible-earth. 1799G. Smith Laboratory I. 229 Take two pounds of crucible powder, of such as is commonly used for refining of silver. 1879Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 371/2 Crucible or cast-steel. 1886Pall Mall G. 29 Sept. 6/2 The cable..will consist of six strands of crucible steel twisted round a Manilla centre.
Hence (nonce-wds.) crucible v., to put into or melt in a crucible; crucibled ppl. a. (fig. in quot.)
1796Mod. Gulliver's Trav. 164 Crucibled perversion's threefold mask. 1841J. T. J. Hewlett Parish Clerk III. 251 Had it been silver, it would doubtless have been crucibled long since. |