case-hardened steel
- noun
- Specialized
:
acero cementado
- Manufacturers often use case-hardened steel in tools to resist wear and withstand heavy use.
Examples
-
The V-grooves of the case-hardened steel pulleys in which the belt rides form an 11-degree angle.
Academic text (1994) -
The engineer chose case-hardened steel for the gears because of its strength and durability.
-
This knife is made from case-hardened steel, ensuring a sharp edge that lasts longer.
How Hard
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
case-hardened + steel
The phrase is compositionally built: 'hardened' clearly indicates increased hardness and 'case' here refers to the outer layer, so a learner can partly infer that the steel has been hardened at the surface. However, the specific technical sense (a hard wear‑resistant surface over a softer interior produced by a metallurgical process) and the use of 'case' to mean 'outer layer' are specialized and not obvious to an average B1 learner, so the full meaning is not completely predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
The noun case-hardened steel comes from how the metal is made: the word case means the outside and that outside is hardened, so the steel has a very hard surface but a tougher inside. That's why the phrase describes 'a hard outside and a tougher inside'.
