metals

• Homophone: meddles (in accents with flapping)

metals

1. plural of metal

metals pl (plural only)

1. (rail transport) The rail tracks owned by a company or organisation; a rail network.

   It was appropriate that 'King' number 6000 began the return to steam on British Rail metals in 1971.

   • 1900 December – 1901 October, Rudyard Kipling, “chapter 8”, in Kim (Macmillan’s Colonial Library; no. 414), London: Macmillan and Co., published 1901, →OCLC:

     Now and again a night train roared along the metals within twenty feet of him; but he had all the Oriental’s indifference to mere noise, and it did not even weave a dream through his slumber.

   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “chapter 7”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     They stood on the foot-bridge over Boathouse Station and looked at the metals gleaming coldly.

   • 1955 April, W. J. Alcock, “Unforgettable Moments”, in Railway Magazine, page 271:

     The way the glare from our engine firehole pulsated, reflecting continuously in the steam, combined with our achievement in keeping level with the lighter train until our metals parted at Wilton, provided another lasting memory.

   • 2019 October, James Abbott, “Esk Valley revival”, in Modern Railways, pages 77, 78:

     Steam services began running over NR [Network Rail] metals from Grosmont to the traffic objective of Whitby in 2007, with operations enhanced by opening of the second platform at the terminus in 2014.

metals

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of metal

• “metal”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• lamest, malest, samlet

metals n

1. indefinite genitive singular of metal

metals

1. plural of metal