CRUCIBLE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Crucible

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/krˈusəbəl/ Listen

noun

Crucible n.

A vessel or melting pot, composed of some very refractory substance, as clay, graphite, platinum, and used for melting and calcining substances which require a strong degree of heat, as metals, ores, etc.

A hollow place at the bottom of a furnace, to receive the melted metal.

A test of the most decisive kind; a severe trial; as, the crucible of affliction.

Hessian crucible (Chem.), a cheap, brittle, and fragile, but very refractory crucible, composed of the finest fire clay and sand, and commonly used for a single heating; named from the place of manufacture.

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Etymology of 'Crucible'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Crucible" Quotes from Famous Books

... himself. Before being a house surgeon at the Hotel-Dieu, Horace Bianchon had been a medical student lodging in a squalid boarding house in the Quartier Latin, known as the Maison Vauquer. This poor young man had felt there the gnawing of that burning poverty which is a sort of crucible from which great talents are to emerge as pure and incorruptible as diamonds, which may be subjected to any shock without being crushed. In the fierce fire of their unbridled passions they acquire the most impeccable honesty, and get into the habit of fighting the battles which await genius with ...

— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac

... leaving consequences to follow in their natural course. These, my first impressions, were fully confirmed by subsequent intercourse, in situations and under circumstances which, by experience, I have found an unfailing alembic for the trial of character—a crucible wherein, if the metal be impure, the drossy substances are sure to display themselves. It is not my province to extol or pronounce judgment upon his acts; they are a part of the military and civil history of our country, and as such will be applauded ...

— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... common weaver bird, Phoceus baya, Blyth. 'Ploceinae, the weaver birds. . . . They build nests like a crucible, with the opening downwards, and usually attach them to the tender branches of a tree hanging over a well or tank. P. baya is found throughout India; its nest is made of grasses and strips of the ...

— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... stone slab, and Clarke watched him drearily as he bent over a row of phials and lit the flame under the crucible. The doctor had a small hand-lamp, shaded as the larger one, on a ledge above his apparatus, and Clarke, who sat in the shadows, looked down at the great shadowy room, wondering at the bizarre effects of brilliant light and undefined darkness contrasting with ...

— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... weighed gold entrusted to the craftsman for working; in another example (at Beni Hasan) the washing and melting down of the ore is represented; and again at Thebes, the goldsmith is depicted seated in front of his crucible, holding the blow-pipe to his lips with the left hand, and grasping his pincers with the right, thus fanning the flame and at the same time making ready to seize the ingot (fig. 283). The Egyptians struck neither coins nor ...

— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

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