Careful Words

metal (n.)

metal (v.)

metal (adj.)

For when did friendship take

A breed for barren metal of his friend?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.

Then marble soften'd into life grew warm,

And yielding, soft metal flow'd to human form.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 147.

Here's metal more attractive.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.

I weigh the man, not his title; 't is not the king's stamp can make the metal better.—Wycherley: The Plaindealer, act i. sc. 1.

  It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): My Study Windows. Abraham Lincoln, 1864.

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth

On war's red techstone rang true metal;

Who ventered life an' love an' youth

For the gret prize o' death in battle?

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. x.

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:

At which the universal host up sent

A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond

Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 540.