Steelyard
//ˈstiːljɑːɹd// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A transportable balance with unequal arm lengths.
- 2 a portable balance consisting of a pivoted bar with arms of unequal length wordnet
- 3 A place where steel (and possibly other metals as well) is stored and sold.
Synonyms
All synonymsEtymology
From steel + yard (“enclosed area, rod”). The sense of “place” is a calque of Dutch staalhof or Middle Low German Stalhof (Modern Dutch staal (“steel”) + hof (“court, yard”)). The sense of “balance” is presumably from the sense of “place”, originally “steelyard beam”, mixed with additional sense of “rod” (hence “rod for weighing steel”), replacing earlier Latin statera.
More for "steelyard"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.