Crucible

Quick meaning: Crucible is a noun meaning (chemistry) A cup-shaped piece of laboratory equipment used to contain chemical compounds when heating them to very high temperatures.

Meaning

(chemistry) A cup-shaped piece of laboratory equipment used to contain chemical compounds when heating them to very high temperatures.

More Meanings

1. A heat-resistant container in which metals are melted, usually at temperatures above 500°C, commonly made of graphite with clay as a binder.
2. The bottom and hottest part of a blast furnace; the hearth.
3. (figuratively) A very difficult and trying experience, that acts as a refining or hardening process.

Example Sentences

But, in considering an author and his works as one, a sufficient distinction is not drawn between the ideal and the real: the last is only given by being past through the crucible of the first.

Some of our ancestors faced trials that we will never know—the snows of Valley Forge; the crucible of a bitter, bloody civil war; and the incredible hardships endured in taming a savage wilderness.

Beowulf's mood as he gets ready to fight the dragon - who could be read as a projection of Beowulf's own chthonic wisdom refined in the crucible of experience - recalls the mood of other tragic heroes.

In one corner of the closet was a very small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible—two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube, which was close to the brim.

Word Forms

• crucibles

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include furnace, smelter, hearth, melting, board, mosaic.

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