First recorded in 1795–1805
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
What they brought was a piece of brick that was likely part of the ship’s steam boiler, and planking from its hull.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 25, 2022
Its original milling machinery was later adapted for operation by steam power and the 19th Century vertical steam boiler and chimney have survived.
From BBC ● Dec. 15, 2021
If this happens, you need to immediately shove a milk carafe under the steam wand to catch the resulting superheated water as it empties the steam boiler.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 1, 2021
A good example of the latter is the steam boiler explosion commission, appointed by Congress to investigate such accidents and discussed in Scientific American's issue of March 23, 1878.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 24, 2020
Constructed out of a forty-foot-long cylindrical steam boiler, the Hunley was designed for an eight-man crew—seven to turn the hand-cranked propeller and a commander to control the steering and the depth.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
His early patents bore the marks of his experience working on trains: more-efficient steam-boiler furnaces, improved braking systems, electrical regulators and a combined telegraph-and-telephone communication device.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 18, 2026
Something like a hundred thousand tinkers are at work every day; and from an egg saucepan to a steam-boiler there is something to be hammered at by every capacity!
From The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I by Lever, Charles James
His tongue, which had laid in a stock of nervous fluid for roaring like a steam-boiler a little opened, was palsied.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXII by Wilson, John Mackay
Uncle Gabor seemed ready to burst, like an over-heated steam-boiler.
From Hungarian Sketches in Peace and War Constable's Miscellany of Foreign Literature, vol. 1 by Jókai, Mór
In straightening out his life and affairs he displayed the energy of a steam-boiler under high pressure and a colossal cheerfulness.
From The Penalty by Christy, Howard Chandler
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.
