steelman
noun, verb
steelman is a noun meaning “A male steelworker” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-T-E-E-L-M-A-N and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 15 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of steelman is steelmen.
What does steelman mean?
noun
- 1
A male steelworker.
- 2
A stronger version of an argument that one is about to critically analyze.
verb
- 1
To repair flaws in an argument before analyzing it critically; to refute or to weaken the force of a stronger version of an argument than what was actually given.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce steelman?
Steelman has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of steelman
- steelmen plural
- steel-man
- steelmans present, singular, he/she/it
- steelmanning participle, present
- steelmanned participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is steelman?
Steelman appears about once in every 15 million words in written English, the 115,751st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Steelman in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | abordar un argumento amacizado |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does steelman come from?
From steel + -man. For the second definition, coined as the inverse of straw man.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).