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Pewter vs Babbitt - What's the difference?

pewter | babbitt |

As nouns the difference between pewter and babbitt

is that pewter is an alloy of approximately 93–98% tin, 1–2% copper, and the balance of antimony while babbitt is babbitt metal.

As an adjective pewter

is of a dark, dull grey colour, like that of the metal.

As a verb babbitt is

to line with Babbitt metal to reduce friction.

pewter

English

(wikipedia pewter)

Alternative forms

* pewtre

Noun

  • An alloy of approximately 93–98% tin, 1–2% copper, and the balance of antimony.
  • (historical) An alloy of tin and lead.
  • items made of pewter.
  • A dark, dull grey colour, like that of the metal.

    • Adjective

    (head)
  • Of a dark, dull grey colour, like that of the metal.

    • Derived terms

    * pewterer * pewterware

    See also

    * touchmark * trifle *

    babbitt

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    Etymology 1

    Named for American inventor Isaac Babbitt (1799–1862)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Babbitt metal.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To line with Babbitt metal to reduce friction.

    • Etymology 2

    Named after the title character in Sinclair Lewis' 1922 novel, Babbit.'' Also popularised by the George and Ira Gershwin song "The Babbitt and the Bromide," featured first in the 1927 musical "Funny Face" and later in the film ''Ziegfeld Follies (1945).

    Alternative forms

    Babbitt

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person who subscribes complacently to materialistic middle-class ideals
  • * 1930 The Literary digest , Volume 105, Funk and Wagnalls, p21
    • One speaks of a babbitt' habit, a '''babbitt era. Nothing is more true. America recognized itself in ''Babbitt , it demurred, but it also admired.
  • * 2002 Tamkang review , Volume 33, Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, p158
    • [...] a "babbitt " is a person full of self-confident bluster who is nevertheless a narrowminded philistine and a hypocrite.
  • * 2003 William Hyland, George Gershwin: a new biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, p116
    • Ira relished telling the story that Fred Astaire took him aside and said he knew what a babbitt was, but what was a bromide?

    References

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