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cold chisel
cold chiselnouna steel chisel used on cold metal.
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cold-chisel
cold-chiselverb (used with object)to work upon (metal) with a cold chisel.
cold chisel
1 Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
Etymology
Origin of cold-chisel
First recorded in 1690–1700
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:
Let the cold chisel away your weakness, leaving behind a lean, wolflike creature ready to take a bite out of life.
From Slate ● Jan. 23, 2015
The caretaker had to chip it off with a cold chisel.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 18, 2011
Then he got a rock, and with a hammer and a screwdriver and cold chisel he etched out a cross and Troop's name and the date of his birth and the date of his death.
From Time Magazine Archive
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An effort to analyze her art is like breaking up butterfly wings with a cold chisel.
From Time Magazine Archive
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The cold chisel should be sharp as it is used to cut the cast-iron pipe.
From Elements of Plumbing by Dibble, Samuel Edward
He has the same tight, twisted, sickly mouth, the same cold-chisel intellect, the same egotistical integrity.
From Time Magazine Archive
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"Queer kind of break; looks like you'd pried the link apart with a cold-chisel."
From Behind the line A story of college life and football by Barbour, Ralph Henry
Which he does this noomerous times, an' every hoof cuts like a cold-chisel.
From Wolfville by Lewis, Alfred Henry
He then told me to hunt in the carpenter’s chest for a file, and a cold-chisel and hammer.
From Salt Water The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman by Lacey, C. J. de
With a cold-chisel I cut long points in what would be the upper part of the crown, and when I had filed these up a little, the crown looked quite nobby.
From A Jolly Fellowship by Stockton, Frank Richard
Hammarskjold, a polished, professional Swedish diplomat, conferred four times with Chou, the cold-chiseled Communist.
From Time Magazine Archive
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His features were cold-chiseled and his coloring was exquisite.
From Ptomaine Street by Wells, Carolyn
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.