Talk:iron

Italian

It sense 2 = "ferro da stirare" or "ferro da stiro"? Check...

It’s ferro da stiro. —Stephen 14:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

---

merged with translations found on http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/elem/fe.html with permission from the author Polyglot 10:48, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Kashmiri

The Kashmiri translation (zelazlo) is obviously wrong. This is a Slavic word for iron. Can someone check?

It’s Kashubian. Somebody probably originally used the language code rather than the name, then someone else misunderstood the code as Kashmiri. That’s one of the reasons we don’t like to use language codes here. —Stephen 14:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

While eye-ron is a common pronunciation, I am not sure it is correct. Can somone check?

I have never heard that pronunciation in American English and would not consider it correct. I don’t think most people would even understand it. We only say "eye-ern" or "eyrn". —Stephen 02:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It is an oft-heard pronunciation among non-native English speakers (atleast in India) possibly due to their 'calling it as they see it'. However, I am going ahead and deleting the incorrect 'US English' pronunciation. — This unsigned comment was added by 71.199.141.61 (talk) at 05:13, 9 November 2006‎ (UTC).

Certainly, it's a spelling pronunciation. How is a non-native supposed to know that its "ion" (British) or "iorn" (American) when the spelling says "iron"?

PS: While English will probably never have a consistent spelling system, I hope that one day at least these graver inconsistencies (iron, one, debt, laugh, etc.) will be revised.

I knew a South African (Jewish) whose mother tongue was English and he would pronounce it eye-ron. This is also given by the Robert & Collins English-French dictionary (which is British). Eric Kvaalen (talk) 16:48, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Not in Chambers. Equinox ◑ 20:49, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Can some native English please replace the pronounciation audio file then? TheReincarnator (talk) 16:30, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Although most Scottish people say ‘iron’ in a similar manner to how most Americans do, though usually with the ‘r’ pronounced differently, ‘eye-run’ (though not ‘eye-ron’ as far as I know) is a fairly widespread pronunciation in Scotland. I recently heard Michael Gove (a British MP, born in Aberdeen) say it this way and I’ve heard other Scots say it the same way too. I think it’s more of a Northern Scottish pronunciation that’s not used much, if at all, in the central belt (although having said that, Gordon Brown is from near Edinburgh and pronounces it that way according to the following link https://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2009/11/iron-or.htmlOverlordnat1 (talk) 16:35, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

In fact this detailed thread on Stack Exchange quotes the OED as saying /ˈaɪrən/." is a Scottish and Yorkshire pronunciation (https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/264658/why-is-iron-pronounced-eye-urn-but-not-eye-run/264662#264662). The Wikipedia article for ‘Irn Bru’ lists the pronunciation too, so this agrees with our listing of this dialect pronunciationOverlordnat1 (talk) 17:40, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Also at least two bands on YouTube, 'Poitin' and 'The Fighting Men of Crossmaglen' sing the Irish rebel song 'Joe McDonnell' in Irish accents and say 'I-run' and Pól McAdaim sings the Internationale with 'I-run' as a lyric, so I've added an Irish tag to that pronunciation. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 17:56, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Sense development

Is it actually generally agreed what the sense development of "iron" was, that it has to do with its rusting and not ... its military applications? Cf. Don Ringe, here:

As Warren Cowgill pointed out to me some thirty years ago, there are at least two good reasons why iron might be called ‘blood-metal’; the fact that it rusts is one of them.

76.191.157.130 22:38, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Etymology

The 1978 American Heritage Dictionary has the etymology of iron as "holy metal". Under root eis-¹: In words denoting passion, 3. Germanic *isarno- "holy metal" (possibly from Celtic), in Old English ise(r)n, iron. That may give different interpretations for Iron in Folklore. Unless there is some clarifying scholarship, you might list both etymologies. --BooksXYZ (talk) 14:08, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I think that our etymology includes all the elements of the AHD etymology. Unfortunately, the definitions of the individual etymons are not included and the main line of derivation is buried in the cognates. See Online Etymology Dictionary for well-presented, brief, reliable English etymologies. DCDuring TALK 14:21, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Would it not draw equally from the middle English iren and the Old Norse járn? Alehanro999 (talk) 15:11, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Why is its pronunciation irregular?

OED

[OE. íren, used beside ísern, ísen, = OFris. ísern, OS. îsarn (MDu. ijzen, ijzer, Du. ijzer), OHG. îsarn, later îsan (MHG., MLG. îsern, îsen, Ger. eisen), ON. ísarn (also later earn, jarn, Sw. järn, Da. jern), Goth. eisarn:—OTeut. type *īsarnom; cognate with OCelt. *īsarnom, whence Gaulish compounds in īsarno-, OIr. íarn (Ir. iaran, iarun, Gael. iarunn, Manx yiarn), OWelsh hearn (:—eharn, iharn:—ísarn), Corn. hoern, OBreton hoiarn, now houarn, pl. hern. The ulterior etymology of the Celto-Teut. īsarno- is uncertain; and the relationship of the various types in Eng. and the cognate languages involves many difficulties. The full Eng. type (= OHG., ON. ísarn) was ísern, found only in OE., though still in the 11th c. The form ísen, corresp. to later OHG. îsan, MHG. îsen, Ger. eisen, MDu. ijzen, extends from OE. to the 14th c. in Kentish and perh. other south. dial. (at length reduced to yse, also in the comb. ysmonger: see ironmonger). The Eng. type íren has no continental parallel; in OE., as a simple n., it was app. chiefly poetic, but it became the standard form in ME.; the second syllable was from the 14th c. variously spelt -en, -yn, -un, and from early in the 16th c. always -on, the prevalent 16th c. form being yron, on which iron gradually gained, and became universal about 1630. In early ME. southern dial., iren was reduced to ire, yre, found in literature in 15th c., and still the s.w. dialect form from Berkshire to Cornwall. In north. dial., on the other hand, iren was compressed to irn, yrn, still used as irn, irne, ern, airn, in Sc. and north. Eng. dial. (See Eng. Dialect Dict. s.v.) In the standard Eng. īren, īron, syncopation app. did not take place until after diphthongation of the ī, whence through a phonetic series (ˈiːrən), (ˈaɪrən), (ˈaɪərən), (ˈaɪər(ə)n), (ˈaɪə(r)n), came the existing (ˈaɪən); cf. the syncopated pa. pples. born, borne, torn, worn, boln, swoln, and Sc. fal'n, fawn, from earlier boren, toren, woren, bollen, swollen, fallen. The 15–16th c. dial. spellings iern, yern, yirn, are ambiguous: in some cases they may have meant (ˈiːərn, ˈaɪərn), in others yern, (jərn), the latter prob. from Norse jarn, Da. jern. The plural yrnes, irnes (-ys, -esse, etc.) could arise alike from yrn, irn, or from yren, iren (as in heven, hevnes). 
The form of the original īsarn has been much discussed; it has been viewed by some as a derivative, and perhaps adj. form, and suggestions made of its relation to ís ice (with the notion of ‘glancing’), or to L. æs, ær-, Goth. aiz, OHG. êr, OE. âr brass; but in neither case with much probability. Some class it among the Inde-eur. neuter words with r in nom.-acc., and -n in oblique cases (e.g. Skt. ˈūdhar gen. ˈūdhnas, L. femur, femin-is), and suppose an orig. nom. *ˈīsar, gen. *iˈsonos (yielding by Verner's Law *izan-az), whence the later forms in -r and -n, and (by contamination) -rn. The phonetic history of ON. jarn and its cognates is also doubtful. Grimm and others suggested a borrowing of OIr. íarn, giving ON. íarn, iárn, járn; others would derive it from izan- through eran, earn, jarn-. (See Möller in P. & B. Beiträge VII. 547; Noreen in Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi IV. 110 note, Abriss der urgerm. Lautlehre 195.) Uncertainty also attaches to the phonetic history of OE. íren whether it merely arose by rhotacism from ísen, or from ísern through an intermediate írern, shortened like berern, beren, cweartern, cwearten.] 

--Backinstadiums (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

RFV discussion: April 2020

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

iron

See also: Tea_room/2020/April

Current noun senses:

• (uncountable) Great strength or power.
• (uncountable, figurative) A very strong or tough material.

a will of iron

He appeared easygoing, but inside he was pure iron.

I feel unsure whether the "Great strength or power" meaning actually exists. There are some cases where the word "strength" can be substituted to make sense, such as "the iron in one's soul", but is "strength" what "iron" actually means here? For example, while we can refer to, let's say, "great strength", the idea of "great iron" seems odd. In these figurative uses, does "iron" in fact always refer to the substance rather than the quality? Or can anyone think of a good example where it does unambiguously mean "strength or power"? Mihia (talk) 14:36, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

It might be wise to substitute these two senses with a more general wording describing the figurative usage referring to the qualities of iron. These are the corresponding definitions from several other dictionaries: Oxford: "Used figuratively as a symbol or type of firmness, strength, or resistance."; Dictionary.com: "something hard, strong, rigid, unyielding, or the like"; MW: "great strength, hardness, or determination". -- Einstein2 (talk) 15:11, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

@Einstein2: Thanks, that seems a good idea. Maybe it is too much of a nit-picking distinction anyway. Mihia (talk) 16:23, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

• The new merged definition can be tinkered with as people wish, but as far as this RFV is concerned, I'm striking it as Resolved. Mihia (talk) 16:27, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Merge

I merged the first two definitions of the English word "iron" into one, on the grounds that they wer essentially the same. Also, one of the definitions placed said article directly in Category:en:Physics and Category:en:Chemistry; i felt that this was undesirable, given that too many articles are placed directly in said two categories; articles in said two categories should be moved into some subcategories. Okay? Solomonfromfinland (talk) 00:28, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Good catch and good merge. I looked through the history because I wondered if this was another relic from Wiktionary's very early days when people would enter multiple ways of phrasing something on different lines as if they were different definitions, but it was apparently split in diff. - -sche (discuss) 01:54, 10 April 2023 (UTC)