Annealing

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Anneal \An*neal"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Annealed}; p. pr. & vb.
     n. {Annealing}.] [OE. anelen to heat, burn, AS. an?lan; an on
     + ?lan to burn; also OE. anelen to enamel, prob. influenced
     by OF. neeler, nieler, to put a black enamel on gold or
     silver, F. nieller, fr. LL. nigellare to blacken, fr. L.
     nigellus blackish, dim. of niger black. Cf. {Niello},


     {Negro}.]
     1. To subject to great heat, and then cool slowly, as glass,
        cast iron, steel, or other metal, for the purpose of
        rendering it less brittle; to temper; to toughen.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. To heat, as glass, tiles, or earthenware, in order to fix
        the colors laid on them.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Annealing \An*neal"ing\, n.
     1. The process used to render glass, iron, etc., less
        brittle, performed by allowing them to cool very gradually
        from a high heat.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The burning of metallic colors into glass, earthenware,
        etc.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  annealing
       n : hardening something by heat treatment [syn: {tempering}]

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  annealing
       
          {simulated annealing}