ANNEAL

anneal, temper, normalize

(verb) bring to a desired consistency, texture, or hardness by a process of gradually heating and cooling; “temper glass”

Source: WordNet® 3.1

Etymology

Verb

anneal (third-person singular simple present anneals, present participle annealing, simple past and past participle annealed)

(metallurgy) To subject to great heat and then (often slow) cooling, and sometimes reheating and further cooling, for the purpose of rendering less brittle; to temper; to toughen.

To cool glass slowly, to minimize internal stress.

(archaic) To burn colors onto a glass or other surface.

(genetics, ambitransitive) To make a double-stranded nucleic acid by pairing a single strand with a complementary strand.

(figurative, archaic or poetic) To strengthen or harden.

Synonyms

• (harden): indurate, ruggedize, temper; see also harden

• (strengthen): See also strengthen

Noun

anneal (plural anneals)

(chemistry, metallurgy) An act of annealing.

Anagrams

• Leanna

Source: Wiktionary

An*neal", v. t. [imp. & p. p. Annealed; p. pr. & vb. n. Annealing.] Etym: [OE. anelen to heat, burn, AS. an; an on + 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.

2. To heat, as glass, tiles, or earthenware, in order to fix the colors laid on them.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition