[f. STEADY a. and v.]
1. [absol. use of the adj.] Something that is steady.
1792. C. Cartwright, Jrnl. Labrador, I. Gloss. p. xv. Steady in a River, a part where the bed widens, inclining to a pond, and there is no perceptible stream.
2. [From the vb.] Something that steadies.
1899. M. Cobbett, Bottled Holidays, viii. 141. Two officials fulfilled the awkward duties of being rounding posts [in a skating match], the competitors generally catching hold of them for a steady as they made the turns.
b. spec. A device for holding steady an object in process of being fashioned. (Cf. Steady-rest, STEADY a. 9 b.)
1889. [Horner], Pattern Making, 106. Make a steady, shaped roughly to fit the bed of the lathe and to take the diameter of the pipe.
1911. Encycl. Brit., XXVII. 26/1. [Lathes.] Of devices for this purpose … some are fixed,… and others are bolted to the carriage of the slide-rest and move along with it—travelling steadies.
