metallurgy

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The science that deals with procedures used in extracting metals from their ores, purifying and alloying metals, and creating useful objects from metals.
2. n. The study of metals and their properties in bulk and at the atomic level.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The science of smelting. In smelting, the metals are separated by known methods from the mineralizing substances with which, with few exceptions, they naturally occur combined. Thus, the common ore of lead is galena, a combination of sulphur with that metal. The smelter treats this combination in the furnace, and the result is metallic lead. The treatment of some ores is simple and easy; that of others is difficult and complex. Smelting implies the use of fire, or separation of the metal in the dry way, but processes carried on in the humid way are not unfrequently employed in the treatment of metalliferous ores. This is not ordinarily called smelting, but metallurgical treatment. The ores of many mining regions are treated at or near the place where they are mined, but it is not at all uncommon for ores to be carried to a great distance to be smelted. Thus, until within a few years, a large part of the copper used in the world was smelted at Swansea, in Wales, from ores brought from various countries, metallurgical skill and the command of cheap fuel making it desirable to have the ore treated there rather than at the place where it was mined. Abbreviated metallurgy

Wiktionary

1. n. The science of metals; their extraction from ores, purification and alloying, heat treatment, and working.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The art of working metals, comprehending the whole process of separating them from other matters in the ore, smelting, refining, and parting them; sometimes, in a narrower sense, only the process of extracting metals from their ores.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the science and technology of metals