rolling mill

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A factory in which metal is rolled into sheets, bars, or other forms.
2. n. A machine used for rolling metal.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A metal-working establishment using, in connection with heating-furnaces, systems of steel rollers for forming metal into sheets, bars, rods, or wires. Such rolling-mills sometimes bear special names, as a rail-mill, wire-rolling mill, etc. The essential feature of a rolling-mill is a set or train of steel rollers placed either in pairs one over the other, as in a two-high train, or in a group of three, as in a three-high train. The heated metal direct from the furnaces is presented to these rollers and is drawn through between the trains. It is at once caught on the other side and repassed between the rollers, each passage between them being called a passive In a two-high train the rollers are stopped and reversed at each pass. In a three-high train the rollers turn constantly in one direction, the return pass being between a different pair of rollers from the pair first passed through, the middle roller, however, always being one of either pair. The distance between the rollers is regulated by screws at the ends. The section given to the metal in passing through the rollers is determined by the shape of the rollers, whether flat or grooved, it being possible to produce in this way bars having a great variety of sections, adapted for independent or structural uses. The rolling-mill serves also to some extent to clear the metal passed through it from impurities. Small rolling-mills with tapering rollers are used to roll short flat metal bars into rings, the passage between the rollers expanding the outside more than the inside edge, and thus causing the strip to assume a curved form. See cut under roll, 2 .
2. n. One of the trains of rolls with its framework and driving-mechanism used in rolling metal bars, plates, or sheets in a rolling-mill. They are also called rolls, and two-high and three-high rolls according to the number of superimposed rolls in the machine.
3. n. A rolling-machine for making sheet-glass by rolling the hot metal.
4. n. A form of leather-rolling machine.
5. n. That part of a powder-manufacturing plant in which the ingredients of the powder are crushed and commingled.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. a mill furnished with heavy rolls, between which heated metal is passed, to form it into sheets, rails, etc.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. steel mill where metal is rolled into sheets and bars