Wood's alloy
- noun
- /wʊdz əˈlɔɪ/
- Specialized
:
aleación de Wood
- Because Wood's alloy melts at a low temperature, it's ideal for making molds in delicate procedures.
Examples
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Some old fire sprinkler systems relied on Wood's alloy to activate when exposed to heat.
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The technician used Wood's alloy to create a temporary safety fuse in the circuit.
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The engineer recommended using Wood's alloy for the project.
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Is Wood's alloy suitable for low-temperature applications?
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Because Wood's alloy melts at a low temperature, it is ideal for creating intricate molds in delicate procedures.
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In many old fire sprinkler systems, Wood's alloy was used to trigger activation when exposed to heat.
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To ensure safety in electrical circuits, the technician chose Wood's alloy for its low melting point when making a temporary fuse.
Synonyms
A soft mixture of metals that melts at a low temperature near 71 degrees Celsius
Surface Forms
Morphology
Wood's + alloy
The noun phrase is built from a possessive proper name ('Wood's') plus the noun 'alloy', so a learner who knows 'alloy' can infer it denotes a particular type of metal mixture named after someone called Wood, giving partial predictability. However, the specific sense (that it is a low‑melting, fusible alloy with a particular composition) is specialized world knowledge that cannot be derived from the constituents alone, so the expression is not fully transparent.
Etymology
The noun Wood's alloy is named after Barnabas Wood, a 19th-century dentist who found a metal mix that melts at a low temperature. Because it literally 'melts' easily, people used it for molds and safety fuses, so the name points to the inventor and to the alloy's low-melting quality.
