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Tungsten or its ore, especially as a commercial commodity.
‘But instead of going to London she married Frank King and moved to remote Hatches Creek, a wolfram mining town 400 kilometres north of Alice Springs.’
‘Stobart cites from the 19th century a host of ketchups including oyster, mussel, Windermere (mushrooms and horseradish), wolfram (beer, anchovies, mushrooms), and pontac (elderberries).’
‘The base is made from the stone remains of a defunct wolfram mine and its wharf.’
‘High-grade iron ore and copper was imported from Sweden; iron ore from Poland, Austria, and Spain; wolfram from Portugal and Spain; and chromium from Turkey.’
‘It's then balanced with heavy inserts of wolfram (the principle ore in tungsten) on both the heel and toe.’
‘Karens also make their living by fishing in coastal areas, working in tin or wolfram mines, and gathering forest products like rattan and honey.’
‘In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan the mining of wolfram, vanadium, and molybdenum had to be increased to compensate for the loss of sites in German-occupied territory.’
‘By 1907 most of the gold mining was replaced by tin and wolfram.’
‘The same year Lodygin's electric lamps were illuminating a St Petersburg shop and he went on to patent the wolfram filament lamp.’
Origin
Mid 18th century: from German, assumed to be a miners' term, perhaps from Wolf ‘wolf’ + Middle High German rām ‘soot’, probably originally a pejorative term referring to the ore's inferiority to tin, with which it occurred.