Wire'-drawing

(-drau'ing.) (Metall.) A very curious art, by which, with the aid of steam, water, or some other power, wire is drawn through orifices succe ively smaller. Wire may thus be reduced from an inch to the 1000th of an inch in diameter, and gold has been made the4000th of an inch in diameter. A single grain of gold admits of being drawn out easily into a wire 100 yards long. That property of metals by which they submit to this operation without breaking is called their ductility. [s. 965]