Ironclad
adj, noun ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A ship, vessel, or vehicle with a covering of iron, steel, or (loosely) any other tough metal.
"He turned again to the nearest land ironclad, advancing now obliquely to him and not three hundred yards away, and then scrambled the ground over which he must retreat if he was not to be captured."
- 2 a wooden warship of the 19th century that is plated with iron or steel armor wordnet
- 3 An armor-plated warship, (especially) one preceding the invention of harveyized steel.
"About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child."
- 4 A wooden warehouse with an outer skin of corrugated metal.
- 1 Covered with iron, steel, or (loosely) any other tough metal; armor-plated. not-comparable
"Unlike the average vehicle, cash delivery vans are ironclad and almost unstoppable."
- 2 Solid or certain; not able to be disputed or questioned; irrefutable. figuratively, not-comparable
"The suspect had an ironclad alibi for his whereabouts on the night of the crime."
- 3 Rigorous; severe; exacting. figuratively, not-comparable
"an ironclad oath or pledge"
- 4 Stubborn; inflexible. figuratively, not-comparable
"All the previous articles had only elicited a growl here or there from a hide-bound Catholic or from an iron-clad Evangelical, but now his post-bag was full."
- 1 without flaws or loopholes wordnet
- 2 inflexibly entrenched and unchangeable wordnet
- 3 sheathed in iron plates for protection wordnet
Example
More examples"It's hard not to write satire. For who is so tolerant of the injustices of the city, so ironclad, that they can hold back?"
Etymology
From iron + clad.
Related phrases
More for "ironclad"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.