the.com/ironclad
A wooden navy's worst nightmare, wrapped in armor and steaming toward obsolescence.
means So firmly secured or guaranteed that it cannot be broken, doubted, or wriggled out of — as in an ironclad alibi or contract.
from A literal compound of 'iron' and 'clad' (the past participle of 'clothe,' from Old English 'clāthian'), so it means 'clothed in iron.' It first described 19th-century warships sheathed in iron plating, and the figurative sense — anything armored against challenge — followed naturally from a thing you simply couldn't pierce.
- first clash
- Monitor versus Merrimack ended in a 1862 draw
- instant obsolescence
- One battle made every wooden warship a relic
- word origin
- Now means contracts you legally cannot wriggle out of
- heavy problem
- All that armor made early ironclads barely seaworthy
- french first
- La Gloire beat everyone to it in 1859
uss monitor — first ironclad warship used in combat by us navy, 1862 battle of hampton roads
hms warrior — first iron-hulled armored warship built by britain, launched 1860
css virginia — confederate ironclad that fought uss monitor at hampton roads, march 1862