Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Jump To:
  • cold chisel
    cold chisel
    noun
    a steel chisel used on cold metal.
  • cold-chisel
    cold-chisel
    verb (used with object)
    to work upon (metal) with a cold chisel.

cold chisel

1 American  

noun

  1. a steel chisel used on cold metal.


cold-chisel 2 American  
[kohld-chiz-uhl] / ˈkoʊldˌtʃɪz əl /

verb (used with object)

cold-chiseled, cold-chiseling, cold-chiselled, cold-chiselling
  1. to work upon (metal) with a cold chisel.


cold chisel British  

noun

  1. a toughened steel chisel

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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

When he was a boy on a Kentucky farm, Dawn used to take a cold chisel, hammer and spoon over to the creek bank and chop faces in soft sandstone.

From Time Magazine Archive

And Larkin, finding that all argument was as futile as trying to crack Gibraltar with a cold chisel, relapsed into silence, and prepared to get what rest he could until daylight.

From The Free Range by Douglas Duer

He has the same tight, twisted, sickly mouth, the same cold-chisel intellect, the same egotistical integrity.

From Time Magazine Archive

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 C. J. de Lacey

After an exhausting two minutes we sent for a cold-chisel….

From Jonah and Co. by Dornford Yates

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 Frank Richard Stockton

And stop eying those books; you can't get at them with anything less than a cold-chisel!

From With the Procession by Henry Blake Fuller

Hammarskjold, a polished, professional Swedish diplomat, conferred four times with Chou, the cold-chiseled Communist.

From Time Magazine Archive

His features were cold-chiseled and his coloring was exquisite.

From Ptomaine Street by Carolyn Wells

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Dictionary.com's Learning Companion

Go beyond just looking up words.
Remember them forever with VocabTrainer.

Start training