Home UK English alloy

Meaning of alloy in English:

alloy

Pronunciation /ˈalɔɪ/

Translate alloy into Spanish

noun

  • 1A metal made by combining two or more metallic elements, especially to give greater strength or resistance to corrosion.

    ‘an alloy of nickel, bronze, and zinc’
    • ‘alloy wheels’
    • ‘The aluminum alloy combines the properties of machinability, corrosion resistance, strength and brazeability.’
    • ‘Nickel-base alloys offer excellent corrosion resistance to a wide range of corrosive media.’
    • ‘Produced from a combination of polymers and metallic alloys, it is highly corrosion resistant and almost maintenance free.’
    • ‘A zirconium-based alloy exhibits 2.5 times the strength of some titanium alloys.’
    • ‘Nickel and nickel compounds were reviewed for listing in the ninth Report on Carcinogens, but the listing was deferred until metallic nickel and nickel alloys could undergo additional specific review.’
    • ‘Since beryllium-nickel alloys resist corrosion by salt water, they are used in marine engine parts.’
    • ‘The luxury package also includes metallic paint, alloy wheels, a simple-to-operate cruise control, a trip computer and some very useful electric seats with memory.’
    • ‘This discovery opens up the exciting possibility of extending this technique not only for isolating other transition and main group metals, but also for the production of alloys, by combining metal oxides as the cathode.’
    • ‘Metal hydrides - formed when metal alloys are combined with hydrogen - can absorb and store hydrogen within their structures.’
    • ‘The company's boffins have essentially developed a material substrate into which magnetic elements made of cobalt, cobalt alloys, or nickel compounds can be embedded.’
    • ‘This new material, an alloy of titanium and nickel, has an ability to return to its original shape after bending.’
    • ‘Coins are made using various alloys of metals like nickel, copper and zinc.’
    • ‘The yield strengths of wrought magnesium alloys normally vary as a function of the direction of metal flow.’
    • ‘The tests involved mixing the constituent elements of the alloy, heating and melting the mixture, and allowing it to cool and solidify.’
    • ‘The hydride is a complex alloy of rare-earth elements and other metals that may be decomposed and reformed reversibly.’
    • ‘Because the yield strength of aluminum alloys is frequently comparable to those of common carbon and stainless steels, aluminum is very competitive with these materials when the application is for a stocky column.’
    • ‘As a magnetic coating material, bridge paint gave way some time ago to electroplated and vacuum-sputtered layers of metallic alloys, made up of cobalt, platinum, chromium and boron.’
    • ‘There is an unusual combination spacer and recoil buffer made of an alloy of brass, titanium and magnesium.’
    • ‘The Metalor Medical Division produces components based on wires and fine tubes from specialty stainless steels, unique alloys, and precious metals.’
    • ‘He said that in this approach the core can be a highly magnetic material like iron or iron alloys, while the shell can be a mixed metal ferrite with tailored resistivity.’
    mixture, mix, amalgam, fusion, meld, blend, compound, combination, admixture, composite, union
    View synonyms
    1. 1.1An inferior metal mixed with a precious one.
      ‘The quality of the boxes themselves also suffered as material became scarce - a consignment of brass was lost with the Lusitania, and as brass was needed for the direct war effort, later boxes were of inferior alloy.’
      • ‘Boldly, I walked up to the mixed alloy gate; its rough battered surface longed for happier days.’
      • ‘The precious metals could be extracted by stirring the molten alloy with molten lead: gold and silver dissolved in the lead while copper did not.’
      • ‘The true metals are actually elements, whereas the false metals are alloys - composites of elements.’

verb

[with object]

  • 1Mix (metals) to make an alloy.

    ‘alloying tin with copper to make bronze’
    • ‘Gold is also alloyed with other metals to create different colors of gold.’
    • ‘It is such a soft and pliable metal that it needs to be alloyed with other metals, into brass or bronze, before it can be used for a structural purpose.’
    • ‘Palladium is generally alloyed with other precious metals, such as gold and silver, as well as with copper.’
    • ‘Iron alloyed with carbon is steel and this steel can be alloyed with a variety of ferro alloys to modify its properties.’
    • ‘Silver is much softer than brass if it is not alloyed with copper, tin, or some other less costly metal.’
    • ‘Lead alloyed with tin, bismuth, cadmium, indium, or other elements, either alone or in combination, forms alloys with particularly low melting points.’
    • ‘Each kimchi fridge uses up to 7 kilograms of aluminium alloyed with manganese and tin - four to five times that of the traditional fridge.’
    • ‘As is the case with steel, titanium is alloyed with other metals to increase its strength.’
    • ‘Tin is structurally a weak metal, and when used in bearing applications it is alloyed with copper and antimony for increased hardness, tensile strength and fatigue resistance.’
    • ‘Others soon followed, industrializing it and sinking shafts to deposits of iron and other metals that could be alloyed to make tools for the Federation war machine.’
    • ‘The metal must always be alloyed if it is to be fabricated or worked to make some useful product.’
    • ‘Depleted uranium alloyed with a small amount of titanium is even harder.’
    • ‘They showed that the copper and zinc alloyed to make the brass were of higher purity than would have been available in the 16th century.’
    • ‘To be effective in modification, antimony must be alloyed to approximately 0.06%.’
    • ‘The new irons formed by alloying or by special melting and casting methods are becoming competitors to steel.’
    • ‘Aluminum is melted and alloyed, and liquid droplets are sprayed or dropped against a chilled surface of high thermal conductivity - for example, a copper wheel that is water cooled internally.’
    • ‘When properly alloyed and hardened by heat-treating, this tendency is greatly reduced.’
    • ‘A deep scratch exposing the alloyed metal can eventually cause measurable harm and be expensive to repair.’
    • ‘With its 25 per cent of alloyed metals, K-gold also possesses optimum strength and colour versatility.’
    • ‘In the last decade of the eighteenth century jewelers perfected methods of alloying gold with various mixtures of copper, zinc, silver, or nickel to create a palette of gold colors to enrich their designs.’
    mix, amalgamate, fuse, meld, blend, compound, combine, unite, intermix, intermingle
    View synonyms
    1. 1.1Debase (something) by adding something inferior.
      ‘a salutary fear alloyed their admiration’
      • ‘The rhapsodic pleasures of her earlier work are alloyed here by a distinctive moral register, a pang of loss and imminent threat.’
      • ‘Jenner's discovery was a touch-stone, to detect what proportion of selfishness alloyed the human heart.’
      • ‘The teenage victor of strenuous battles against the most formidable and seasoned of opponents, his ferocious gifts were alloyed with a beguiling sensitivity to all things poetical.’
      • ‘The shadow of sin clouds all of our experience in this life, and thus our joys will always be alloyed with sorrow.’
      • ‘Once more, he will forge a character by alloying his own inner stuff with whatever the audience members bring into the theatre.’

Origin

Late 16th century from Old French aloi (noun) and French aloyer (verb), both from Old French aloier, aleier ‘combine’, from Latin alligare ‘bind’. In early use the term denoted the comparative purity of gold or silver; the sense ‘mixture of metals’ arose in the mid 17th century.