| 释义 |
stainless steel
[f. stainless a. + steel n.1]
1. A chromium-steel alloy, usu. containing about 14 per cent of chromium when used for cutlery, etc., that does not rust or tarnish under oxidizing conditions because of the formation of a film of oxide on its surface. Freq. attrib.
1917Sci. Amer. 31 Mar. 329/2 A steel that does not stain or tarnish is one of the latest new materials... It is called ‘stainless steel’. 1920Glasgow Herald 4 Aug. 9 Since the Armistice there has been an enormous sale of stainless steel for cutlery purposes. 1926J. H. G. Monypenny Stainless Iron & Steel i. 6 Stainless steel was first introduced to the public in 1914 in the form of table cutlery. Ibid. 13 The discovery of the non-corrosive properties of stainless steel by Brearley, in 1913, was something entirely new in the history of chromium steels. 1932Discovery May 145/1 There are three principal types of stainless steel. Low carbon stainless steel, frequently called stainless iron, contains less than 0·12 per cent of carbon and from 11 to 12 per cent of chromium... Cutlery steel, so called because it was first used for knives, contains 0·3 per cent of carbon and from 12 to 15 per cent of chromium... Austenitic stainless steel has the highest resistance of all to corrosion and is the most generally useful of the stainless steels. 1958Times Rev. Industry Apr. 73/1 There were..many worthy examples of..the application of newer materials, especially stainless steel and aluminium, to domestic requirements. 1979V. S. Naipaul Bend in River v. 83 The stainless steel jug..had only a stale-looking trickle of powdered milk.
2. fig. or in fig. context: chiefly used attrib. with allusion to the qualities of brightness, hardness, coldness, etc., associated with stainless steel.
1963Times 10 June 6/5 Miss Astrid Varney's Isolde has the hallmark of true greatness upon it, but sometimes the voice takes on a stainless steel quality that would be more suited to the role of Ortrud. 1964G. Lyall Most Dangerous Game xxiii. 192, I was..searching for the stainless-steel glint of a river to fix my position. 1974Publishers Weekly 25 Mar. 6/2 She is..married to Sir Alfred Ayer, the celebrated English philosopher, whom she describes affectionately as ‘the man with the stainless steel mind’. 1978R. Doliner On the Edge (1979) ix. 142 His ego was gleaming hard, made of stainless steel. |