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Crossword clues for steely

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
steely
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a steely gaze (=a determined look)
▪ He fixed a steely gaze on his opponent.
dogged/steely/grim determination (=very strong determination)
▪ As a politician she was known for her dogged determination.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
determination
▪ During their time together, Rigby recognised the steely determination Gedge applied to the group.
▪ Howard Saddler plays Cassius with steely determination, persuasive in his arguments that initially draw Brutus into the conspiracy.
▪ Then she saw the look of steely determination in his eyes and knew he was more than capable of it.
▪ But her steely determination to make her way in a cruel world has done its own damage.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A steely haze hung over the factory.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But her steely determination to make her way in a cruel world has done its own damage.
▪ By now Dad was sixty-five, and what little lenience he may once have possessed had long since hardened into steely inflexibility.
▪ He had a steely streak but his morals and scruples were beyond reproach.
▪ He was tall and sinewy, and his fingers gripped her arms with a steely strength.
▪ Howard Saddler plays Cassius with steely determination, persuasive in his arguments that initially draw Brutus into the conspiracy.
▪ Lord Halifax was a cold fish, a man of steely rectitude, a religious man.
▪ No detectable makeup clutters a face that can go steely with the certainty of design convictions.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Steely

Steely \Steel"y\ (-[y^]), a.

  1. Made of steel; consisting of steel. ``The steely point of Clifford's lance.''
    --Shak.

    Around his shop the steely sparkles flew.
    --Gay.

  2. Resembling steel; hard; firm; having the color of steel. ``His hair was steely gray.''
    --The Century.

    She would unarm her noble heart of that steely resistance against the sweet blows of love.
    --Sir P. Sidney.

    Steely iron, a compound of iron containing less than one half of one per cent of carbon.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
steely

1580s, "made of steel," from steel (n.) + -y (2). Figurative meaning "hard and cold as steel" is from c.1500. Related: Steeliness.

Wiktionary
steely

a. 1 Having qualities resembling those of steel, especially hard and resolute. 2 Made of steel.

WordNet
steely
  1. adj. resembling steel as in hardness; "steely eyes"; "steely nerves like those of a steeplejack"

  2. resembling steel in hardness

Usage examples of "steely".

He was forced to discard the Bushmasters and resort to his malletlike fists, slugging every Automaton that came within reach of his steely sinews.

Equally steely was the gun muzzle that covered the former prisoners of Alban Sark, prisoners who had escaped one captor to fall into the hands of another clan.

Rocky Lake, half-way up, and the far-away, sunlit view of the valley five thousand feet below them, or the steely, shoreless waters of the lake with the clouds afloat on their surface, incredibly clear and still in a bowl of scoured rock, its couloirs and crevices outlined in permanent snow.

Under the pale stars the water shimmered, steely black in the shade of overhanging shore, dead silver in the center, where the fish swirled and the crocodiles trailed dimpling wakes.

From a blue horizon, dulled and almost obliterated by long, jagged layers of steely clouds, came the ceaseless rush of deep-chested waves, as even, as fascinating as the vermiculations of a serpent.

Albron were looking out across the valley where the drunken Ansus were saddling their horses in the steely first light of dawn.

A debonair Etonian, Steed oozes charm, wit and - when he chooses to -- hard-edged, steely menace.

Upon seeing his son near death for the second time in his life, steely old Gryllus openly wept.

Conyngham looked up towards the foe in time to see a puff of white smoke thrown up against the steely sky.

He stared at the masklike face, with the steely eyes, and wondered who this visitor might be.

As it approached the river, it began a wide circle high in the steely sky with the city of Omdurman as its centre.

When I opened them again it was to see something flat, misshapen, elongated like a reflection in a spoon, something that had been Savage lying on the floor, and stretched out over it the huge serpent studying me with its steely eyes.

Automatically I relaxed both sets of lips and lay quietly in the steely arms while it both fed and fucked me -- if fucking it was.

Zoe knew there was no point in struggling so she allowed herself to be laid on a waist-high workbench and leather straps fastened around her limbs in matching fashion to the Boston blonde who hung upside down, her steely blue eyes watching her with silent sympathy.

With the huge Thalesian keeping him from tumbling in a steely clatter down the stairs, Sparhawk inched his way headfirst down the stairs until he could see out into the room beyond.