anneal
Americanverb (used with object)
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to heat (glass, earthenware, metals, etc.) to remove or prevent internal stress.
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to free from internal stress by heating and gradually cooling.
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to toughen or temper.
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Biochemistry. to recombine (nucleic acid strands) at low temperature after separating by heat.
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to fuse colors onto (a vitreous or metallic surface) by heating.
noun
verb
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to temper or toughen (something) by heat treatment
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to subject to or undergo some physical treatment, esp heating, that removes internal stress, crystal defects, and dislocations
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(tr) to toughen or strengthen (the will, determination, etc)
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(often foll by out) physics to disappear or cause to disappear by a rearrangement of atoms
defects anneal out at different temperatures
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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annealsimple
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annealssimple
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have annealedperfect
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has annealedperfect
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am annealingprogressive
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are annealingprogressive
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is annealingprogressive
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have been annealingperfect progressive
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has been annealingperfect progressive
Past
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annealedsimple
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had annealedperfect
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was annealingprogressive
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were annealingprogressive
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had been annealingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of anneal
before 1000; Middle English anelen, Old English anǣlan to kindle, equivalent to an- on + ǣlan to burn, akin to āl fire
Explanation
When you anneal metal or glass, you heat it and then cool it in order to make it less brittle and more malleable. Metallurgists — engineers who specialize in the properties and uses of metals — have to know a variety of methods used to anneal different kinds of metals. You can also anneal glass, to make it stronger and to help keep it from shattering.
Vocabulary lists containing anneal
The Golden Goblet
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List 8
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The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The foreign DNA and vector are allowed to anneal.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
The tone of the letter seems, to this reader, overly filled with shame, but it works to anneal the injury.
From New York Times ● Nov. 12, 2021
But in the alkaline waters of these springs, the carbonate in the water will anneal to the shell of a snail, causing snail shells to grow increasingly heavy and unwieldy.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 23, 2017
Pronk, S. & Frenkel, D. Can stacking faults in hard-sphere crystals anneal out spontaneously?
From Nature ● Nov. 7, 2017
Perhaps Rekh would now let him make leaves every day, perhaps allow him to anneal wire, spread solder just so on the boxes, and learn and become skillful.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
The process of PCR anneals DNA molecules to complementary DNA strands, which maintains the same amount of DNA.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
One who, or that which, blanches or whitens; esp., one who anneals and cleanses money; also, a chemical preparation for this purpose.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Webster, Noah
The baking not only anneals the wire, but reduces the shellac to a hard and highly insulating mass.
From On Laboratory Arts by Threlfall, Richard
They were also annealed at different temperatures and treated with different organic salt additives.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 30, 2023
Gonzalez-Torres and Laycock had seen and loved an earlier work by Horn — a thin, crumpled sheet of annealed gold.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 28, 2022
The essence of the London story is retained, with stouthearted Buck being annealed by adversity, overcoming brutality, confusion and loneliness and then responding to the kindness of Thornton to become the leader of the pack.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 19, 2020
Next, the forward and reverse oligonucleotides were annealed and cloned into the pLKO.1 lentiviral vector, which was predigested with EcoRI and AgeI.
From Nature ● Oct. 10, 2017
I would have made a better choice than Travis, now that I had been annealed in the furnace of the Scientific Method.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
D-Wave briefly explored gate-based models after its founding in 1999 before shifting its focus to quantum annealing.
From Barron's ● Jun. 1, 2026
The company was exploring gate-based models early on, but abandoned those efforts in favor of differentiating itself through its focus on annealing, which has since become its bread and butter.
From Barron's ● Apr. 21, 2026
Veeco sells technologies for ion-beam deposition and laser annealing, which are essential in manufacturing semiconductors and packaging advanced chips.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 28, 2026
Then there’s the matter of D-Wave’s proprietary annealing technology and its limited applications.
From Barron's ● Jan. 27, 2026
Another coil of wire lay ready for annealing.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
