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to smelt

to smelt

3 8.0
To get metal from rock by heating it until it melts
  • verb
  • /smɛlt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : fundir
  • Before creating new products, the factory needs to smelt aluminum scrap into usable ingots.
  • smelting iron
  • smelting ore

Look, they've got everybody from me to a guy who smelts steel.

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Examples

  • While iron ore is plentiful in the United States and many countries around the world, the process of smelting iron ore into steel is energy-intensive.

    Academic text (2008)
  • But if you can smelt them together, then you create bronze, which is actually very hard.

  • So they smelted down or melted down the gold somewhere near Bristol.

  • Iron ore, found all over the mountain, was smelted and exchanged for other products in many places.

    Academic text (1998)
  • For this reason, a certain percentage of the ores smelted have to be high in sulfur.

    Academic text (1996)
  • We were able to film everything from gathering the iron sand, to smelting the iron, forging the sword, to sharpening and polishing it.

  • The workers began to smelt copper ore in the large furnace to extract the metal.

  • Ancient civilizations would smelt metals to craft tools and weapons for daily use.

Idioms

9.9

A joking way to say the person who first noticed a bad smell caused it

A joking way to blame the person who notices a bad smell for making it

Compounds

American smelt
  • Specialized
7.0

A small silvery fish from rivers and coasts of eastern North America and Alaska eaten as food

A small thin silver fish found in European rivers and coasts with a mild taste

8.0

A small silvery fish from North America that lives in fresh and coastal waters and is often eaten as food

How Heated

calcination
  • Specialized
9.9
to smelt
  • Specialized
3 8.0
roasting
21 1.4
heating
23 1.0
warming
1.3

Surface Forms

smelt infinitive
smelted past
smelted past participle
smelting present participle
smelts third person singular

Etymology

Smelt (the verb) comes from an old word smeltan meaning 'to melt'. So, to smelt metal is to heat and melt ore to take the metal out.