the.com/riveting
a word that means thrilling, born from hammering hot metal pins until your eyes can't leave
means So engrossing that you can't look away — completely absorbing your attention.
from From the verb 'rivet,' to fasten metal plates with a rivet — a short bolt hammered flat at both ends to hold things permanently together. 'Rivet' came into English from Old French 'river,' meaning to fix or clinch. The figurative leap is natural: just as a rivet fixes metal immovably in place, a riveting tale fixes your eyes and attention so you cannot tear them away.
- literal origin
- named for rivets, the bolts that hold metal fast
- the shift
- jumped from fastening steel to fastening attention
- ship glue
- millions of rivets held the Titanic together
- riveter icon
- Rosie made the word a wartime feminist legend
titanic sinking — 1,500+ people died when the ship struck an iceberg in 1912, with rivets failing in the hull
brooklyn bridge — opened in 1883 with 1.2 million rivets holding its steel cables and towers together across the east river
empire state building — completed in 1931 using 60,000 tons of steel fastened with 6.5 million rivets in new york