Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
wire wool
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Before you replace it, clean the two pipe ends thoroughly with wire wool, then brush on flux.
▪ She chose the cooker and began to scrape its insides with wire wool.
▪ She felt a wire wool of beard on her chin, and realised she was seeing the world two-dimensionally.
▪ The inside of the fitting should be brushed out with a special wire brush and rubbed with wire wool.
▪ The more stubborn food particles can be removed by gentle scrubbing with wire wool.
▪ They are looking at some wire wool that has rusted.
WordNet
wire wool
n. a mass of woven steel fibers used as an abrasive [syn: steel wool]
Usage examples of "wire wool".
She whistled after the gas man, and the vegetable boy let her work the shredding machine, piling cabbage into heaps of wire wool and sending razor-blades of carrots and pumpkin to join the hairpins of beans.
The signal was lousy, it sounded as if he was broadcasting through a mass of wire wool.
His throat felt as though someone had scoured it out with wire wool.
He changed his shirt, and dressed the wound on his shoulder, and cleaned his armour, rubbing with wire wool and a graded series of cloths until he could, once again, see his face in it.