ingot
(ˈɪŋgət)
Also 4–6 yngot.
[Of uncertain origin. Occurs in Chaucer in sense 1; then not till the second half of the 16th c. in sense 2 (though sense 1 is also used in 16–18th c.). French has lingot (in sense 2) from 1405 onward; med.L. lingotus (1440 in Du Cange), Sp. lingote, Pg. linhota; all perh. from Fr. See below.
The form ingold in Wright's Chaucer (Can.-Yeom. T. 656) is a scribal error of MS. Harl. 7334; ingowe in Spenser (F.Q. ii. vii. 5) is either a misprint or a mistaken archaism.]
† 1. A mould in which metal is cast; an ingot-mould. Obs.
| c 1386 Chaucer Can. Yeom. Prol. & T. 670 He took the Chalk, and shoope it in the wise Of an Ingot. Ibid. 680 And fro the fir he took vp his mateere And in thyngot putte it. 1584 R. Scot Discov. Witchcr. xiv. i. (1886) 294 Mysticall termes of art; as (for a tast) their subliming, amalgaming..matters combust and coagulat, ingots, tests, &c. [cf. Chaucer Can. Yeom. Prol. 265]. 1613 R. Cawdrey Table Alph. (ed. 3), Ingot, a wedge of gold, also the trough wherin it is molten. 1683 Pettus Fleta Min. i. (1686) 46 Set the Ingot smooth that the Copper may be no thicker at one end than the other. 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 306/2 An Ingot or Lingate..is an Iron, Brass, or Copper Instrument, with an hollow place made in it, to receive and hold any sort of Metal cast into it. 1799 G. Smith Laboratory I. 145 When in fusion, pour it into a flat ingot, and let it cool. |
2. A mass (usually oblong or brick-shaped) of cast metal,
esp. of gold or silver, and (in modern use) of steel; these last are of various shapes.
| 1423 Rolls Parlt. IV. 22 Item, diverses Yngottes & kakes d'arg[ent], pois[auntz] xxxiii {ltilde}ƀ vii unc'. Item, vi Yngottes d'arg[ent], poisauntz vi {ltilde}ƀ ix unc' di. 1583 Stanyhurst æneis i. (Arb.) 29 His wief to hyd treasur he poincted, Where the vnknowne ingots of gould and siluer abounded. 1584 R. Scot Discov. Witchcr. xiv. ii. (1886) 297 A beechen cole, within the which was conveied an ingot of perfect silver. 1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. vii. 5 Great heapes of gold..Of which some were..new driven, and distent Into great Ingowes [ed. 1596 Ingoes] and to wedges square. 1601 Holland Pliny II. 464, 15000 wedges or ingots of gold, 35000 lumps or masses of siluer. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 46 ¶2 Not, like a Miser, to gaze only on his Ingots or his Treasures. 1794 Sullivan View Nat. I. 482 The silver is dried and fused in crucibles to be cast into ingots. 1825 J. Nicholson Operat. Mechanic 343 The ingots of cast-steel can be drawn into bars one-third of an inch square. 1862 Fraser's Mag. Nov. 633 At the present exhibition he [Krupp] shows an ingot of cylindrical form that weighs 20 Tons. |
3. attrib. and
Comb., as
ingot-copper,
ingot-gad,
ingot-holder,
ingot-mould,
ingot-silver,
ingot-steel, etc.
ingot iron, iron which contains too little carbon to temper and is nearly pure by industrial standards, differing from wrought iron in containing no slag;
ingot stripper, a machine for separating an ingot from the mould containing it;
ingot structure, the arrangement of crystals in an ingot.
| 1877 A. S. Hewish in Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 363 About 8,000 tons of ingot-copper. |
| 1558–62 T. Phaer æneid viii. B b iij, Yngot gaddes with clashing clinckes, In blustryng forges blown. |
| 1887 Pall Mall G. 11 Aug. 10/1 Crushed to death by the fall of the ingot-holder, a bar of iron weighing eight tons. |
| 1877 Trans. Amer. Inst. Mining Engin. V. 20 Mr. A. L. Holley, Chairman of the International Committee, appointed by the Institute to consider the nomenclature of iron and steel, offered the following report:{ddd}That all compounds of iron with its ordinary ingredients, which have been cast from a fluid state into malleable masses, and which will not sensibly harden by being quenched in water, while at a red heat, shall be called ingot iron. 1938 J. Newton Introd. Metall. vii. 178 Ingot iron and wrought iron are both very low in carbon, and their physical properties approach those of pure iron. Ibid. xvi. 499 Ingot iron is commercially pure iron, with total impurities |
| 1904 J. W. Hall in Harbord & Hall Metall. Steel i. 41 The ‘Ingot Stripper’ is a most efficient machine..saving..all damage to the moulds from sledging to remove the ingots. 1957 Camp & Francis Making, Shaping & Treating of Steel (ed. 7) xv. 295 (caption) Schematic representation of the action of an ingot stripper in removing the molds from (left) big-end-down ingots and (right) big-end-up ingots. |
| 1825 J. Nicholson Operat. Mechanic 759 The metal is poured into an ingot⁓mould. |
| 1932 E. Gregory Metall. ii. 49 The original ingot structure exerts a profound influence on the behaviour of the material during forging, rolling, etc. 1952 J. Wulff et al. Metall. for Engineers xvii. 316 Some knowledge of how steels are melted is useful for interpreting ingot structure. |
[
Note. F.
lingot is held by some French etymologists to be adopted from
Eng., with coalescence of the article, for
l'ingot. The origin of a term of alchemy (as this evidently was) in
Eng., is not
a priori probable. Also, the only recorded sense of F.
lingot (which appears frequently in 15th-16th c.) is
= our sense 2, while the English
ingot before 1558 is known only from Chaucer in sense 1: this makes a difficulty, unless it is assumed that sense 2 was also in English during these two centuries, though not yet found. Those who assume an
Eng. origin suggest a derivation (not unapt as regards the sense) from
in adv., and
goten, ancient
pa. pple. of
OE. ᵹeótan,
ME. ȝeoten,
ȝeten,
yheten,
mod. dial. yett to pour, to cast (metal). Here there is the difficulty that the
pa. pple. goten was conformed to the rest of the
vb., as
ȝoten,
yhoten,
yoten, before the 14th c.; the hard
g might
perh. have been retained in an old compound, as in the derivative
gote, ‘water-course, gutter, drain’, but even in that case we should have expected an original final vowel, giving
ME. ingote. The existing evidence is thus too contradictory for any certain conclusion.]
Hence
ˈingoted a., furnished with ingots or wealth.
| 1864 Yates Broken to Harness xvii, He's safe to ask no women who are not enormously ingotted. 1875 M. E. Braddon Hostages to Fortune I. i. 25 People who trace their lineage as far as Hengist and Horsa are seldom heavily ingotted. |