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Ironclad   /ˈaɪərnklˌæd/   Listen
Ironclad

adjective
1.
Sheathed in iron plates for protection.
2.
Inflexibly entrenched and unchangeable.  Synonym: brassbound.  "Brassbound party loyalists" , "An ironclad rule"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Ironclad" Quotes from Famous Books



... three sections. Maj. John W. Graham advanced the center faster than the wings and soon planted our flag on the west fortifications. This was a signal for Hoke's and Kemper's brigades to come in from that side. On Monday night of the first attack, at midnight, our ironclad gunboat, Albemarle, came down the river and cleared it of all the Yankee shipping, sinking and running off all their gunboats. The Albemarle was firing into Fort Williamson. General Hoke demanded the surrender of this fort, but ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott

... procession of three carriages with white-favour-adorned horses and drivers, went through all the huge, noisy, indifferent traffic like a lost china image in the coal-chute of an ironclad. Nobody made way for us, nobody cared for us; the driver of an omnibus jeered; for a long time we crawled behind an unamiable dust-cart. The irrelevant clatter and tumult gave a queer flavour of indecency ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... up an ironclad contract that will hold a man as slippery as Eells, but two outside lawyers who had come in with the rush did their best to make it air-tight. And even after that Wunpost took it to Los Angeles to show a lawyer who was his friend. When it came back from the friend ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... force of the United States consists at this time of 588 vessels completed and in the course of completion, and of these 75 are ironclad or armored steamers. The events of the war give an increased interest and importance to the Navy which will probably extend ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... of April, Taylor marched ten miles to New Iberia. While there, he had the unfinished ironclad gunboat Stevens, previously known as the Hart, floated two miles down the Teche, destroyed by fire, and the wreck ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... take its place. My plan is to sink a shaft at the farther end of the mine, and to build an air-tight box at the surface opening, completely closing it, except for an outflow pipe. Then I shall put one of the big ironclad fans into that box upside down. When it is set spinning it will suck air out of the mine, and fresh air will rush in at the main shaft to take the place ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... facts have a bearing upon each other I can not at present state, but in view of the twenty years' franchise, and of the fact that you will hold undisputed control, I do not see but that you have a splendid investment here. The contract for the city lighting of those twelve blocks is ironclad, and the franchise for exclusive private lighting and power is exclusive so long as 'reasonably satisfactory service' is maintained. As this has been undisputed for thirty years I don't think you need have much fear upon that ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... with five ironclad letters, he returned along the route, arriving finally at the portals of the office building on West Adams Street wherein Pullman porters are created ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... many over into the gulf, he was met by Skipper Ned Bryce, a sociable, reckless sort of man, of whom he was rather fond. Bryce was skipper of the Fairy, an iron smack, which was known in the fleet as the Ironclad. ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... the messengers of Death to remember and to relieve from their misery. This is not rhetorical exaggeration. The weapons of offence regularly win in their race with the weapons of defence. Fortresses that took years to construct are shattered in a day. The ironclad is sunk by the torpedo. How very little margin lay between this country and starvation through action of submarines! Suppose the enemy had possessed five times as many submarines from the first, would our defensive measures have prevailed? How small an ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... There was no doubt of it. Moving with a terrible sinuous motion. Occasionally an incautious ironclad approached like a foolish hen, and pecked at the moving mass. Then there was a slight crash, followed by a mild convulsion of masts, and spars, and iron-plates, and 100-ton guns, then two or three gurgles and all was still. The iceberg passed on smiling in triumph, and British Admirals wrote ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various

... movements of Major-General John E. Wool and the forces under his command, which resulted in the surrender of Norfolk and the evacuation of strong batteries erected by the rebels on Sewells Point and Craney Island and the destruction of the rebel ironclad steamer Merrimac, are regarded by the President as among the most important successes of the present war. He therefore orders that his thanks as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy be communicated by the War Department to Major-General John E. Wool and the officers and soldiers of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... many branches of natural history, besides being a good linguist. In summer the British squadron, commanded by Admiral Smart, came for five weeks to Spezia. My nephew, Henry Fairfax, was commander on board the ironclad "Resistance." Notwithstanding my age, I was so curious to see an ironclad that I went all over the "Resistance," even to the engine-room and screw-alley. I also went to luncheon on board the flagship "Victoria," a three-decker, which put me in ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... at his desk when Mr. Newman, on the Monday evening, was shown in to him by the ironclad widow who kept house for him. He looked up with impatience as his ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... in war is their faculty for hating. They hate with more concentration and intensity than men do. These women were mindful, perhaps, of the girl with the baby whom Clithering had seen shot. They realized, perhaps, the menace for husbands, lovers, and sons which lay in the guns of the black ironclad parading sluggishly before their eyes. Remembering and anticipating death, they hated the source of it with uncompromising bitterness. The men in the crowd seemed crushed into silence by mere wonder and expectation of some unknown thing. They were not, so far as I could judge, afraid. ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... thick; if the snow is soft, the blocks are thicker, that they may hold their shape. The blocks for the bottom layer are sometimes two or three feet long and two feet high; but sometimes they are much smaller, as there is no ironclad rule about it. ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... narrative, I cannot hope to make clear to you all that Cuthbert Banks endured in the next few weeks. And, even if I could, I doubt if I should do so. It is all very well to excite pity and terror, as Aristotle recommends, but there are limits. In the ancient Greek tragedies it was an ironclad rule that all the real rough stuff should take place off-stage, and I shall follow this admirable principle. It will suffice if I say merely that J. Cuthbert Banks had a thin time. After attending eleven debates and fourteen lectures on vers libre Poetry, the Seventeenth-Century ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... Exchange. This great change in 'Squimalt has not taken place in late years. The loss of the naval station lately does not seem to have made a deal of difference to its appearance. It dates back to the "wooden walls" of old England, and the appearance on the scene of the ironclad of later years. Whatever was the cause, the effect is there, and I suppose good reason could be found for the great change. Melancholy it was to me, who had seen the place full of life, jollity and laughter as bluejackets and scarlet-coated marines by ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... fourpence I owed Edward; not that he was bothering me for it, but I knew he was in need of it himself, to pay back Selina, who wanted it to make up a sum of two shillings, to buy Harold an ironclad for his approaching birthday,—H. M. S. Majestic, now lying uselessly careened in the toyshop window, just when her country had such ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... out at the horizon, and the sea immediately under was still and glassy, so that the neck of land seemed projected into the sky—a sort of gigantic razor-fish suspended in the silvery clouds. Then, to give the yachts time to overtake them, they steamed over to a mighty ironclad that lay at anchor there; and as they came near her vast black bulk they lowered their flag, and the band played "Rule, Britannia." The salute was returned; the officer on the high quarterdeck raised ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... morning found the six girls downstairs and seated at the breakfast table. Mr. Ashe, who made it an ironclad rule always to be in his office at half-past eight o'clock, even on holidays, had time for only a hasty good morning all around before his man announced that his car ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... shocked the whole nation; but although there were no more wrought-iron cannon made, the building of naval steamships, which began with Stockton's "Princeton," went steadily on, growing and improving, until it reached the high point shown by the swift and powerful ironclad men-of-war which now fly ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... been absent on a trip to Kansas City, and who had returned just in time to see his performance, that it was at once decided to take him to Australia. The contract that he was made to sign was an ironclad one, and one that carried such horrible penalties with it in case of desertion that it was enough to scare the little darkey almost to death. When I looked him over that night on the train I told him that I should not be in the least surprised ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... overcome the Turkish guard, an army corps, and the excited Turkish population." Elsewhere, with prophetic foresight, he showed that the forcing of the Dardanelles could not be carried out without "heavy loss, possibly tremendous loss, and that the loss of a first-class British ironclad is equivalent to the loss of an army corps with all its guns." [Footnote: Letter to the Macclesfield Chronicle, September ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... marksmen of the fighting line. The phase of tension will pass, that weakening opposition will give, and the war from a state of mutual pressure and petty combat will develop into the collapse of the defensive lines. A general advance will occur under the aerial van, ironclad road fighting-machines may perhaps play a considerable part in this, and the enemy's line of marksmen will be driven back or starved into surrender, or broken up and hunted down. As the superiority of the attack becomes week by week more and more evident, its ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... superstition that a calamity of any sort must be expiated by a human sacrifice; so the wickednesses and stupidities of our medicine men are rooted in superstitions that have no more to do with science than the traditional ceremony of christening an ironclad has to do with the effectiveness of its armament. We have only to turn to Macaulay's description of the treatment of Charles II in his last illness to see how strongly his physicians felt that their only chance of cheating death was by outraging nature ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... time in the Crimea. The allied fleet was sent to bombard various sea forts. The most important of these naval operations from a historical standpoint was the expedition against Kinburn, for here it was that the modern ironclad was first tried. On September 5, 1854, Napoleon had ordered the construction of five armored floating batteries, which embodied the results obtained in the tests of plating made before the War Ministry's representatives at Vincennes. The ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... towers, belvederes, and gazebos so tall that no one ascends them, and with flat roofs bearing rooms of glass, sparkling like mirrors where they catch the eye of day; the toy-forts, such as the Fortaleza do Pico de Sao Joao, built by the Spaniards, an upper work which a single ironclad would blow to powder with a broadside; the mariner's landmark, 2,000 feet high, Nossa Senhora do Monte, white-framed in brown-black and backed by its feathery pines, distance-dwarfed to mere shrubs, where the snow-winds sport; the cloud-cap, a wool-pack, iris-tinted by the many-hued ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... whole craft seems to be alive, and a perfect demon of energy and strength. Many persons hold that a torpedo boat is likely to be more useful in terrifying an enemy than in doing him real harm, and we can safely say that the captain of an ironclad who saw half a dozen of these vessels bearing down on him, and did not wish himself well out of a scrape, has more nerve than ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... informed me, for a rock off the Punta del Carnero, or Mutton Point. The rock is covered when the tide is high (for there is a tide here), but rears its tortoise-like back over the surface for some hours at the ebb. The Channel squadron was coming out of Gib some years before when an ironclad grounded on this rock, but was got off without more damage than a scraping. As the danger to the navigation was outside the limits of the fortress, the British authorities applied to the Spanish for permission to clear away the obstruction. It was easily to be accomplished. ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... again in running order and everything progressing smoothly when one morning at breakfast I was informed that Pierola had broken out again. This time his party had, by means unknown, captured the Peruvian ironclad ram, Huascar. He must have been aided by the officers, or at least one of them who declared in his favor. Howbeit, he had possession. The Peruvian fleet was sent in pursuit, but as the Huascar was the most powerful vessel of the fleet, they ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... were not allowed to bring your own fodder! Then, too, a number of cars were apt to arrive late in the day, now that the roads were blocked with snow, and the packers would buy their cattle that night, to get them cheaper, and then would come into play their ironclad rule, that all cattle must be killed the same day they were bought. There was no use kicking about this—there had been one delegation after another to see the packers about it, only to be told that it was the rule, and that there was not ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... dock has been formed, capable of receiving the largest steamers in the ocean mail service, and broad enough for an ironclad. The principal dimensions are: length, 540 feet; breadth, 68 feet; depth, 26 feet. An outer harbour, 44 acres in extent, will be gradually formed under the protection of the breakwater. When these works are completed, Cape Town will afford advantages ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... leisure wherein—a thing impossible amid the perpetual storm and stress of war—the young blood of the nation could be more gradually inured to the sea and tuned to fighting-pitch. Science had not yet linked hands with warfare. Steam, steel, the ironclad, the super-Dreadnought and the devastating cordite gun were still in the womb of the future; but the keels of a newer fleet were nevertheless already on the slips, and with the old order the press-gang, now for ever obsolete, went the way ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... bill to allow the beneficiaries named therein to present to the Court of Claims for determination certain demands made by them against the Government on account of the construction of two ironclad monitors called the Squando and the Nauset and a side-wheel ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... anyway (adv.) anywhere awhile baseball billboard bipartizan bondholder carload classmate corespondent downstairs everyday (a.) everyone fireproof football footlights footpad gateman holdup inasmuch infield ironclad juryman landlady lawsuit letterhead linesman midnight misprint misspell nevertheless newcomer nonunion northeast northwest Oddfellows officeholder oneself outfield pallbearer paymaster postcard posthaste postmaster rewrite saloonkeeper schoolboy ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... block of seasoned oak, six inches through, and two feet in height, and interpose it squarely against an approaching body and it is almost as powerful in the way of resistance as so much metal. It would take an ironclad to crush it to pulp, by acting longitudinally or along its line of length. This block stood upright, and received a portion of the rafters, covered by the shingles and held them aloft as easily as you can hold your hat with your outstretched arm. From ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... affectionate way of referring to Schenectady—and that her best citizens are still her best citizens, and that Rev. George R. Lunn and all his Socialist crew can't do a great amount of harm in two years to a city that possesses such an ironclad charter as that with which Horace White, when he was a Senator, endowed every city of the second class in the Empire State. The conservative element in town back that charter against all the reforms that the minister who is to be mayor and his following of machinists, plumbers, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... position was by no means impregnable. The river James to the south was held by the "Merrimac," an improvised ironclad of novel design, which had already wrought terrible destruction amongst the wooden frigates of the Federals. She was neutralised, however, by her Northern counterpart, the "Monitor," and after an indecisive action she had remained inactive for nearly ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... running into any trouble. Oh! uncle, it is wonderful. Well, now, these men would be all ready for us if we were in national danger. I heard Mr. Fullerton say that hundreds of them are in the Naval Reserve, and as soon as they learned their way about an ironclad, they would take to the work by instinct. There is nothing they don't understand about the sea, and wind and weather. Would any negro help us? Why, Lord Wolseley told your friend Sir James Roche that a thousand ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... event of this brief war occurred on the sea - the greatest battle of ironclad ships in the period between the American Civil War and the Japan-China contest. Both countries concerned had fleets on the Adriatic. Italy was the strongest in navel vessels, possessing ten ironclads and a considerable number of wooden ships. Austria's ironclad fleet ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... devoted to the creation of a navy. By the end of the year 1863 the government had six hundred vessels of war which were increased to seven hundred before the rebellion was subdued. Of the total number at least seventy-five were ironclad. It may be instanced with laudable pride that one enterprising man, honorably distinguished as a scientific engineer, constructed in less than a hundred days an armored squadron of eight ships, in ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... Another of the Emperor's friends now enters the play. On January 7, 1863, M. Arman, of Bordeaux, "the largest shipbuilder in France," had called on the Confederate commissioner: M. Arman would be happy to build ironclad ships for the Confederacy, and as to paying for them, cotton bonds might ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... Mother Play, (2) Mother Stories, and (3) Child Play, with subordinate groupings under each. About 250 rhymes are included in Welsh's collection, and the arrangement suggests the best order for using them practically, without dropping into any ironclad system. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... afternoon existence of Hilo is disturbed. Two days ago an official intimation was received that the American Government had placed the U.S. ironclad "Benicia" at the disposal of King Lunalilo for a cruise round Hawaii, and that he would arrive here the following morning with Admiral Pennock and the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... Monitor, in March, 1862, sent a thrill of relief and joy through the North by its wonderful victory over the Merrimac. The Confederates cut down a United States frigate at the Norfolk navy yard, and transformed it into an ironclad ram, with a powerful beak. This monster they sent against the Union fleet of wooden warships in Hampton Roads. Broadsides had no effect on the Merrimac. The floating fortress attacked the Cumberland, ramming that vessel, and breaking a great hole in its side. The Cumberland sank with all on board. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... from the cool, comfortable quarters of the Boxer to the hot wardroom of the ironclad was not an agreeable one; but Frank was not the one to complain, and he entered upon his duties with his accustomed cheerfulness and alacrity. He was allowed very little rest. The captain of the Michigan—which ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon

... was the only existing relic within the city's verge of the chain of downs once encircling the whole place. It had however been cannonaded so steadily during the six months' siege as to have become almost ironclad—a mass of metal gradually accumulating from the enemy's guns. With the curtain extending from it towards east and west it protected the old town quite up to the little ancient brick church, one of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... raised like a dome, the bottom of the brig crushed in, and she had sunk instantly, the damage done to her hull being so considerable that it was impossible to refloat her. The Speedy had not been able to withstand a torpedo that would have destroyed an ironclad as easily ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... of July 16, 1862, I most cordially recommend, that Commander John L. Worden, United States Navy, receive a vote of thanks of Congress for the eminent skill and gallantry exhibited by him in the late remarkable battle between the United States ironclad steamer Monitor, under his command, and the rebel ironclad steamer ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... took command of my two hundred boys and girls in B——, I realized how vast is the contrast between free and unrestricted educating, and the grind of cramming according to the ironclad rule of ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... Even the toughest seafarer would have thought twice before venturing beyond the breakwater in such an unsavoury derelict; and Reginald, be it remembered, had only once in his life made a sea voyage, and that in the peaceful security of an ironclad. His heart ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various

... more boldly still!' He must be shown the many hideous scenes of coarseness, vulgarity, obscenity, and degrading immorality in Martin Luther's life." When the Catholic rises from the contemplation of these scenes, it is hoped that his mind has become ironclad against Protestant argument. These attacks upon Luther are a plea pro domo, the effort of a strong man armed to keep his palace and his goods ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau



Words linked to "Ironclad" :   inflexible, combat ship, warship, sheathed, war vessel



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