different between heat vs refractory

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: h?t, IPA^(key): /hi?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /hit/, [çit]
• Rhymes: -i?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English hete, from Old English h?te, h?tu (“heat, warmth; fervor, ardor”), from Proto-Germanic *hait?? (“heat”), from Proto-Indo-European *kayd-, a derived form of *kay- (“heat; hot”).

Cognate with Scots hete (“heat”), North Frisian hiet (“heat”), Old High German heiz? (“heat”). Related also to Dutch hitte (“heat”), German Hitze (“heat”), Swedish hetta (“heat”), Icelandic hiti (“heat”).

Noun

heat (countable and uncountable, plural heats)

1. (uncountable) Thermal energy.
   • 2007, James Shipman, Jerry Wilson, Aaron Todd, An Introduction to Physical Science: Twelfth Edition, pages 106–108:

     Heat and temperature, although different, are intimately related. [...] For example, suppose you added equal amounts of heat to equal masses of iron and aluminum. How do you think their temperatures would change? […] if the temperature of the iron increased by 100 C°, the corresponding temperature change in the aluminum would be only 48 C°.

2. (uncountable) The condition or quality of being hot.

3. (uncountable) An attribute of a spice that causes a burning sensation in the mouth.

4. (uncountable) A period of intensity, particularly of emotion.

   Synonyms: passion, vehemence

5. (uncountable) An undesirable amount of attention.

6. (uncountable, slang) The police.
7. (uncountable, slang) One or more firearms.
8. (countable, baseball) A fastball.

9. (uncountable) A condition where a mammal is aroused sexually or where it is especially fertile and therefore eager to mate.

10. (countable) A preliminary race, used to determine the participants in a final race

11. (countable) One cycle of bringing metal to maximum temperature and working it until it is too cool to work further.

12. (countable) A hot spell.

13. (uncountable) Heating system; a system that raises the temperature of a room or building.

14. (uncountable) The output of a heating system.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English heten, from Old English h?tan (“to heat; become hot”), from Proto-Germanic *haitijan? (“to heat, make hot”).

Verb

heat (third-person singular simple present heats, present participle heating, simple past and past participle heated or (dialectal) het)

1. (transitive) To cause an increase in temperature of (an object or space); to cause to become hot (often with "up").

   I'll heat up the water.

2. (intransitive) To become hotter.

   There's a pot of soup heating on the stove.

3. (transitive, figuratively) To excite or make hot by action or emotion; to make feverish.
4. (transitive, figuratively) To excite ardour in; to rouse to action; to excite to excess; to inflame, as the passions.
5. (transitive, slang) To arouse, to excite (sexually).

   The massage heated her up.

Derived terms

Synonyms

• stoke
• warm up
• heat up; hot up, hot

Translations

Anagrams

• Thea, eath, haet, hate, heta

Swedish

Etymology

From English heat.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?hi?t/
• Homophone: hit

Noun

heat n

1. (sports) A heat, a preliminary race, used to determine the participants in a final race

Declension

Anagrams

• Thea, heta

English

Etymology

From Latin refract?rius (“obstinate”), from refractus, past participle of refringere (“to break up”). Originally refractary, refractarie, but reanalysed after other adjectives in -ory.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /???f?æk.t??.i/
• Rhymes: -ækt??i

Adjective

refractory (comparative more refractory, superlative most refractory)

1. Obstinate and unruly; strongly opposed to something.

   Synonyms: (inanimates) contrary, fractious; see also Thesaurus:obstinate

   • 1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, Chapter 26,

     Mr. Weller knocked at the door, and after a pretty long interval—occupied by the party without, in whistling a tune, and by the party within, in persuading a refractory flat candle to allow itself to be lighted […]

   • 1913 Eleanor Porter: Pollyanna: Chapter 8:

     For five minutes Pollyanna worked swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole procedure, was, in spite of herself, beginning to tingle with a feeling perilously near to excitement.

3. Not affected by great heat.

   Synonyms: heat-resistant, fireproof
4. (medicine) Difficult to treat.
   • 1949, Albert Fields and John Hoesley, "Neck and Shoulder Pain", Calif. Med., 70(6):478–482.,

     Many of the vague and refractory cases of neck and shoulder pain and of migraine may be due to cervical disc disease.

   • 1990, H. A. Ring et al, "Vigabatrin: rational treatment for chronic epilepsy", J. Neurol. Neurosurg.Psychiatry, 53(12):1051–1055,

     In 33 adult patients with long standing refractory epilepsy on treatment with one or two standard anti-convulsant drugs,

5. (biology) Incapable of registering a reaction or stimulus.
   • 1959, Nobusada Ishiko and Werner R. Loewenstein, "Electrical output of a receptor membrane", Science, 1959, 130:1405-6,

     The production of a generator potential leaves a refractory state in the receptor membrane […]

   • 1970, S.S. Barold et al, "Chest wall stimulation in evaluation of patients with implanted ventricular-inhibited demand pacemakers", Br. Heart J., 32(6):783–789,

     The […] delivery of external stimuli […] delineates the pacemaker refractory period after the emission of a pacing stimulus and after the sensing of a spontaneous beat.

Derived terms

Related terms

• refractive
• refraction

Translations

Noun

refractory (plural refractories)

1. A material or piece of material, such as a brick, that has a very high melting point.

Translations

Further reading

• refractory at OneLook Dictionary Search