wire-drawn, ppl. a.
(ˈwaɪədrɔːn)
[pa. pple. of wire-draw v.]
1. Drawn out to a great length or with subtle ingenuity; fine-spun; elaborately subtle, ingenious, or refined.
| 1603 Florio Montaigne i. xxvii. 96 A subject, common, bare-worne, and wyer-drawne [orig. tracassé] in a thousand bookes. 1610 B. Jonson Alch. iii. ii, To..shorten so your eares, against the hearing Of the next wire-drawne grace. 1642 D. Rogers Naaman 138 The..more subtill and wire⁓drawne selfe hath beene in deceiving the soule, the more the soule may abhorre her. 1662 Hibbert Syntagma Theol. i. 196 There is no more certain signe of a bad cause than extended testimonies and wire-drawn arguments. 1715 Felton On the Classics (1718) 137 What they call Improvement, is generally..spinning out their Author's Sense, till 'tis wire⁓drawn, that is, weak and slender. 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. v. §24 The..wire-drawn distinctions..of the Schoolmen. 1817 Dibdin Bibliogr. Decam. I. 380 A very long note might grow out of this observation, but there is no necessity to be outrageously wire-drawn upon it. 1851 Carlyle Sterling iii. v, Courtly delicate manners, verging towards the wiredrawn and elaborate. 1873 Helps Anim. & Mast. iv. 110 What a relief it is to come from the wiredrawn nonsense of Seneca, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, to the broad common sense of this thoughtful Scotchman [sc. Hume]. |
2. Of steam, water: see wire-draw v. 2 b.
| 1744 Desaguliers Course Exper. Philos. II. 522 Unless this wire-drawn water goes faster than at the Rate of four Feet in a Second, the Motion is not too swift. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., Wire-drawn.., the condition of steam when the pipes or ports leading to the cylinder have not sufficient carrying capacity. 1885 C. G. W. Lock Workshop Rec. Ser. iv. 101/2 When the suction- or delivery-pipe is too small,..the water is then called ‘wire-drawn’. |
3. Of a metal: Drawn into wire. rare.
| 1826 Adamson Rail-Roads 7 The under part will approach nearer to the condition of wire-drawn iron. |
4. nonce-uses. Attenuated; ‘weak’; ‘thin’.
| 1856 Delamer Fl. Gard. (1861) 12 A difficulty in town gardens is to keep things from being wire-drawn. 1876 Hardy Ethelberta xiii, ‘I—am glad to see you!’ Christopher stammered, with a wire-drawn, radically different smile from the one he had intended. 1897 Crockett Lad's Love iii, The keen, thin, wire-drawn voice of Peter Chrystie. |