1. A pen made of steel, split at the tip like a quill. (In quot. 1636 transf.)
1636. Massinger, Bashful Lover, I. i. With this Steel-pen [sc. his sword] I’ll write on Florence helm, how much I can and dare do for you.
[1657. a Pen of steele: see PEN sb.2 4.]
1678[?]. Hatton Corr. (Camden), 169. It comes in my mind to ask you if you have, in England, stel penns.
1700–1. North, Lett., 8 March, in Lives (1890), III. App. 247. You will hardly tell by what you see, that I write with a steel pen. It is a device come out of France.
1777. Mme. D’Arblay, Early Diary, March. I am now writing with a Steel Pen, which Mr. Cutler … has just sent me.
1834. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett. (1883), I. 12. I write with a steel pen.
2. colloq. Applied to the ‘swallow-tail’ or evening-dress tail-coat.
1873. Leland, Egypt. Sketch-Bk., 257. The steel-pen coat, as Tom Hood, junior, calls it.
1882. Sala, Amer. Revis., xiii. (1883), 164. The swallow-tail,… from its caudal bisection, is more appropriately designated by Americans the ‘claw-hammer’ or ‘steel-pen’ coat.
