vbl. sb. [f. WIRE-DRAWER: see -ING1.]
1. The action or operation of making wire by drawing a piece of ductile metal through a series of holes, successively decreasing in diameter, in a steel plate called a draw-plate. Also attrib.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, III. viii. 33. Such Fellows are like your Wire-drawing Mills; if they get hold of a Man’s Finger, they will pull in his whole Body at last.
1797. W. Johnston, trans. Beckmann’s Invent., II. 232. The invention of the drawing-iron or proper wire-drawing.
1840. Lardner, Geom., xv. 177. The process of wire-drawing … in which a cylindrical form … is required to be imparted to the metal of which the wire is made.
1876. Rock, Text. Fabr., 22. The first use of a wire-drawing machine seems to have been about the year 1360, at Nuremberg.
2. transf. (See quots. and WIRE-DRAW v. 2 b.)
1660. D’Acres, Water-Drawing, 35. The forceing & crowding of the water contrary to its own natural porousnesse, and as I may properly term it (as it were) a wyer-drawing of the water.
1875. R. F. Martin, trans. Havrez’ Winding Mach., 90. Wire-drawing of the steam from passing through a contracted orifice.
1887. Encycl. Brit., XXII. 487/1. Wire-drawing of steam is … a case of imperfectly-resisted expansion.
3. fig. (see WIRE-DRAW v. 3).
1640. Digby in Lismore Papers, Ser. II. (1888), IV. 139. I am sorry to see thinges gotten by wyre drauing, which one may be sure before hand must be granted.
1648. C. Walker, Hist. Independ., I. 54. At length after much wyer-drawing of the businesse, one Warrant was shewn to Master Baynton.
1732. Berkeley, Alciphr., VII. § 12. What Footsteps are there in the Holy Scripture to make us think, that the wiredrawing of abstract Ideas was a Task injoined either Jews or Christians?
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., III. x. We have often blamed him for a habit of wire drawing and over-refining.
1877. Conder, Basis Faith, ii. 63. To refine this discussion into the wire-drawing of verbal controversy.
So Wire-drawing ppl. a. in fig. senses.
1741. Richardson, Pamela, IV. vi. 37. I know the pretty wire-drawing ways of your Sex.
1756. Burke, Vind. Nat. Soc., Wks. 1906, I. 12. The history … does not afford matter enough to fill ten pages, though it should be spun out by the wire-drawing amplification of a Guicciardini himself.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. vi. An idle wire-drawing spirit … is too clearly discernible.
