iron man
1
5.2
- noun
- /ˈaɪərn mæn/
:
hombre de hierro
- We're talking about Olympic athletes like Des Linden and Iron Man world champion Sam Laidlow.
- Baseball's iron man
Fuck off everyone right now like rating just for that because this man, he's an Iron Man.
- Fuck off everyone right now like rating just for that because this man, he's an Iron Man.
Examples
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We're talking about Olympic athletes like Des Linden and Iron Man world champion Sam Laidlow.
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And then obviously, you know, Iron Man finishes with that, that marathon.
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So first the my first season I signed up for Iron Man Canada.
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And he had run an Iron Man marathon.
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You're a tough guy, six feet of iron man.
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He is the first Down syndrome human ever to finish an Iron Man marathon.
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Hmm, an iron man.
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It's MAUNEY, the truest Iron Man of the PDR.
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A real-life hard charger, Frank is the kind of iron man firefighters want coming in after them, should they get caught in harm's way.
Fiction book (2000) -
He amazed everyone with his extraordinary strength, proving he was truly an iron man.
Synonyms
2
5.6
A man who shows great physical strength by doing acts like bending steel
1
7.5
A person with great strength and endurance who finishes long races of swimming, cycling and running
1
4.5
A man with large strong muscles from exercise
1
5.2
A very large man who is strong
Antonyms
How Strong
43
6.0
1
5.2
2
5.6
- Informal
15
1.8
- Offensive
24
4.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a man with extraordinary physical strength or endurance' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'iron' (metaphorically strong, durable) with 'man' — the adjective+noun composition straightforwardly yields the intended sense. This metaphor of iron = strength is cross-linguistically common and follows regular compositional patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the meaning.
Etymology
The noun iron man comes from the image of a man made of iron, the hard metal that does not bend or break. One popular idea is that it compares a person to a metal man or a machine that keeps going and does not get tired, so the phrase means 'a man with great strength or endurance'.