What is "bronze"

Bronze \Bronze\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bronzed; p. pr. & vb. n. Bronzing.] [Cf. F. bronzer. See Bronze, n.]

1. To give an appearance of bronze to, by a coating of bronze powder, or by other means; to make of the color of bronze; as, to bronze plaster casts; to bronze coins or medals.

   The tall bronzed black-eyed stranger.
   --W. Black.

2. To make hard or unfeeling; to brazen.

   The lawer who bronzes his bosom instead of his forehead.
   --Sir W. Scott.

   Bronzed skin disease. (Pathol.) See Addison's disease.

Bronze \Bronze\, n. [F. bronze, fr. It. bronzo brown, fr. OHG. br?n, G. braun. See Brown, a.]

1. An alloy of copper and tin, to which small proportions of other metals, especially zinc, are sometimes added. It is hard and sonorous, and is used for statues, bells, cannon, etc., the proportions of the ingredients being varied to suit the particular purposes. The varieties containing the higher proportions of tin are brittle, as in bell metal and speculum metal.

2. A statue, bust, etc., cast in bronze.

   A print, a bronze, a flower, a root.
   --Prior.

3. A yellowish or reddish brown, the color of bronze; also, a pigment or powder for imitating bronze.

4. Boldness; impudence; ``brass.''

   Imbrowned with native bronze, lo! Henley stands.
   --Pope.

   Aluminium bronze. See under Aluminium.

   Bronze age, an age of the world which followed the stone age, and was characterized by the use of implements and ornaments of copper or bronze.

   Bronze powder, a metallic powder, used with size or in combination with painting, to give the appearance of bronze, gold, or other metal, to any surface.

   Phosphor bronze & Silicious bronze or Silicium bronze are made by adding phosphorus and silicon respectively to ordinary bronze, and are characterized by great tenacity.

1721, "alloy of copper and tin," from French bronze, from Italian bronzo, from Medieval Latin bronzium. Perhaps cognate (via notion of color) with Venetian bronza "glowing coals," or German brunst "fire." Perhaps influenced by Latin Brundisium the Italian town of Brindisi (Pliny writes of aes Brundusinum). Perhaps ultimately from Persian birinj "copper."\n

\nIn Middle English, the distinction between bronze (copper-tin alloy) and brass (copper-zinc alloy) was not clear, and both were called bras. A bronze medal was given to a third-place finisher since at least 1852. The archaeological Bronze Age (1865) falls between the Stone and Iron ages, and is a reference to the principal material for making weapons and ornaments.

1640s, literally, 1726 figuratively, from French bronzer (16c.) or else from bronze (n.). Related: Bronzed; bronzing. Meaning "to make to be bronze in color" is from 1792.

1. 1 Made of bronze metal. 2 Having a reddish-brown colour. 3 (lb en of the skin) tanned; darkened as a result of exposure to the sun. n. 1 (context uncountable English) A natural or man-made alloy of copper, usually of tin, but also with one or more other metals. 2 (context countable and uncountable English) A reddish-brown colour, the colour of bronze. 3 (context countable English) A work of art made of bronze, especially a sculpture. 4 A bronze medal. 5 Boldness; impudence; brass. v

2. 1 (context transitive English) To plate with bronze. 2 (context transitive English) To color bronze. 3 (context intransitive of the skin English) To change to a bronze or tan colour due to exposure to the sun. 4 (context transitive English) To make hard or unfeeling; to brazen.

1. adj. of the color of bronze [syn: bronzy]

2. made from or consisting of bronze

1. n. an alloy of copper and tin and sometimes other elements; also any copper-base alloy containing other elements in place of tin

2. a sculpture made of bronze

1. v. give the color and appearance of bronze to something; "bronze baby shoes"

2. get a tan, from wind or sun [syn: tan]

At right is displayed the color bronze. Bronze is a metallic brown color which resembles the actual alloy bronze.

The first recorded use of bronze as a color name in English was in 1753.

Bronze (1803 – July 1827) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and broodmare who won the classic Oaks Stakes at Epsom Downs Racecourse in 1806. Bronze's classic win left her unbeaten in three starts, but her subsequent racing career was undistinguished: in eighteen more races she recorded only three wins, two of which were at relatively minor tracks. After being retired to stud in 1809 she proved to be a highly successful and influential broodmare, whose direct descendants have won many important races up to the present day.

Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12% tin and often with the addition of other metals (such as aluminium, manganese, nickel or zinc) and sometimes non-metals or metalloids such as arsenic, phosphorus or silicon. These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as stiffness, ductility or machinability.

The archeological period where bronze was the hardest metal in widespread use is known as the Bronze Age. In the ancient Near East this began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, with India and China starting to use bronze around the same time; everywhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BC and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BC, though bronze continued to be much more widely used than it is in modern times.

Because historical pieces were often made of brasses (copper and zinc) and bronzes with different compositions, modern museum and scholarly descriptions of older objects increasingly use the more inclusive term " copper alloy" instead.

Bronze race is a term used since early 20th-century by Latin American writers of the indigenista and americanista schools to refer to the mestizo population that arose in the Americas with the arrival of Latin European (particularly Spanish) colonists and their intermingling with the New World's Amerindian peoples.

Mexican poet Amado Nervo wrote "La Raza de Bronce" ("The Bronze Race") as an elegiac poem in honor of former president Benito Juárez in 1902. Bolivian indigenista writer Alcides Arguedas used the term in his 1919 work, La Raza de Bronce, a study of the natives of the Andean altiplano. It was later used by Mexican luminary José Vasconcelos in La Raza Cósmica (1925).

The term was revived in the 1960s by Chicano ethnic group MEChA to refer to Latinos in the United States and the people in Mexico as a unified "race", similar to the black and white races. In this sense it is largely synonymous to the notion of the Chicano nation. The decision to call it a separate "race" may have been influenced by the contemporary negative views of "ethnic" or "nation" based nationalism and positive views of "race" based nationalism. The notion was first enunciated in the Plan Espiritual de Aztlan document.

Bronze is an alloy of copper with any of several other metals, often tin.

Bronze may also refer to:

• Bronze (color), the tint of the metal
• Bronze (turkey), a breed of domestic turkey
• Bronze Age, an early period of historical development
• Bronze medal, a medal given for a third-place finish in a competition
• Bronze Records, an English independent record label
• Bronze sculpture, a piece of art made of bronze
• Bronze Sunbird, a species of bird found in Africa
• In chemistry, various mixed oxides with metallic sheen, such as
  • sodium tungsten bronze
  • molybdenum purple bronze , A = Li, Na, K, Rb, Tl