pewter

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Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he ordered them to produce their weapons.

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Any of numerous silver-gray alloys of tin with various amounts of antimony, copper, and sometimes lead, used widely for fine kitchen utensils and tableware.
  2. noun Pewter articles considered as a group.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • If you have to clean pewter, and I recommend that you don't, please put it in a simple hay bath – three pints of chopped hay into a big metal pan. —  process 10
  • Two old-fashioned silver table-spoons, supposed to be Spanish, and a pewter wash-basin were purchased from the Indians. —  The Life of Captain James Cook
  • Tarnished by a patina redolent of burnished pewter, the full-length looking glass was crisscrossed with meandering fissures erupting from a pox of rust stains, symbolically a mirror of the tort inflicted on her body by the arrow of time. —  Brit Lit Blogs
  • In this instance the knife was iron and the spoon pewter, the plate a wooden trencher (never changed), and the drinking-cup of horn. —  A Forgotten Hero Not for Him
  • Pewter is a metal never seen for modern table furnishing, or domestic use in any form to-day; but in colonial times what was called a garnish of pewter, that is, a full set of pewter platters, plates, and dishes, was the pride of every good housekeeper, and also a favorite wedding gift. —  Home Life in Colonial Days
 

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English pewtre, from Old French peutre, from Vulgar Latin *peltrum.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English pewter, pewtir, pewdir = Dutch peauter, piauter, from Old French peutre, peautre, piautre, French peautre = Spanish Portuguese peltre = Italian peltro (Middle Latin peutrum, pestrum, after Old French), pewter; apparently the same, with loss of initial s due to some confusion, as Old French espeautre (later D. speauter, spiauter = German spiauter), from Low German spialter = English spelter: see spelter.
 

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/ˈpjutər/
by American Heritage

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