Definition of "iron" []

• A silvery-white, lustrous, malleable, ductile, magnetic or magnetizable, metallic element occurring abundantly in combined forms, notably in hematite, limonite, magnetite, and taconite, and used alloyed in a wide range of important structural materials. Atomic number 26; atomic weight 55.845; melting point 1,535°C; boiling point 2,750°C; specific gravity 7.874 (at 20°C); valence 2, 3, 4, 6. See Table at element. (noun)
• An implement made of iron alloy or similar metal, especially a bar heated for use in branding, curling hair, or cauterizing. (noun)
• Great hardness or strength; firmness: a will of iron. (noun)
• Sports Any of a series of golf clubs having a bladelike metal head and numbered from one to nine in order of increasing loft. (noun)
• A metal appliance with a handle and a weighted flat bottom, used when heated to press wrinkles from fabric. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "With the rise of knowledge of scientific chemistry, it was quickly found that the essential difference between iron and steel was that the latter was _iron plus carbon_."
• "The iron keeps all that it gets; we, and other animals, part with it again; but the metal absolutely keeps what it has once received of this aerial gift; and the ochreous dust which we so much despise is, in fact, just so much nobler than pure iron, in so far as it is _iron and the air."
• "Then I asked him if any piece of iron would attract, after it was rubbed upon the magnet; and he said that _iron_ would not, but that any piece of _steel_ would."