Crucible

How to spell crucible

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce crucible

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does crucible mean?

1. nounA heat-resistant container in which metals or other substances are melted at very high temperatures.
2. nounA demanding situation or ordeal that severely tests and transforms a person.

Crucible in a sentence

• The technician poured molten copper from the crucible into the mould.

• The new manager described her first year as a crucible that taught her resilience.

• The laboratory kept a ceramic crucible for heating samples in the furnace.

• The start-up survived the crucible of the recession and emerged stronger.

Where does crucible come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Medieval Latin crucibulum, the name for an earthenware pot in which metals were melted and refined at fierce heat. The deeper origin is uncertain, though many sources connect it to Latin crux, meaning 'cross', possibly because such lamps or pots were once associated with night lights hung before crosses, while others see a link to words for a hanging lamp. English adopted it in the late Middle Ages, around the 1400s, in the practical vocabulary of metalworkers and early chemists. Because the heat of the crucible burned away impurities and tested the metal, the word picked up a powerful figurative sense for any severe trial that transforms a person or situation. That cross connection is worth remembering for the spelling: think of the same opening as 'crucial', another word tied to Latin crux, which keeps the tricky 'cruci-' in mind.

How the word is built

• crucibul- (from Medieval Latin crucibulum: a melting pot)
• -e