Definition of "cast iron" []

• A hard, brittle, nonmalleable iron-carbon alloy, cast into shape, containing 2 to 4.5 percent carbon, 0.5 to 3 percent silicon, and lesser amounts of sulfur, manganese, and phosphorus. (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.

• "          The gate not only flew open, with its bar broken, but was knocked completely off of its hinges, blown backward into the lowered portcullis behind it, and the cast iron portcullis itself was broken into at least a dozen pieces!"
• "It was a cast iron layer, evidently an extension of Iron Mountain."
• "The toughness of the cast iron of Ross's and Zane's furnaces is very remarkable."