HIGH-PRESSURE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of High-pressure

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adjective

High-pressure adj.

Having or involving a pressure greatly exceeding that of the atmosphere; said of steam, air, water, etc., and of steam, air, or hydraulic engines, water wheels, etc.

Fig.: Urgent; intense; as, a high-pressure business or social life.

Using intense psychological pressure or other incentives to convince others to do things; aggressively persistent; as, high-pressure salesmen; high-pressure tactics.

High-pressure engine, an engine in which steam at high pressure is used. It may be either a condensing or a noncondensing engine. Formerly the term was used only of the latter. See Steam engine.

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Etymology of 'High-pressure'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"High-pressure" Quotes from Famous Books

... intelligent to start with, and more stubborn besides. But the most valuable metals here are deep down—this planet is very light for its size, you know—so the Nevians kept at it until they conquered some of the deep-sea fish, too, and put 'em to work. But those high-pressure boys were nobody's fools. They realized that as time went on the amphibians would get further and further ahead of them in development, so they let themselves be conquered, learned how to use the Nevians' tools and everything else ...

— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul ...

— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... star in the heavens above, and the steamboat appears as if it were gliding through a current of ink, with black masses rising just perceptible on either side of it; no sound except the reiterated note of the "Whip poor Will," answered by the loud coughing of the high-pressure engine. Who, of those in existence fifty years ago, would have contemplated that these vast and still untenanted solitudes would have had their silence invaded by such an unearthly sound? a sound which ever gives you the idea of ...

— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... Gabie. I don't blubber as a rule. This fever leaves you as weak as a rag, and ready to cry if any one says 'Boo!' I've been doing some high-pressure thinking since nursie left. Had plenty of time to do it in, sitting here by this window all day. My land! I never knew there was so much time. There's been days when I haven't talked to a soul, ...

— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... is one cylinder on a compound locomotive called the high-pressure cylinder and the ...

— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous

... by which these continental railways have been brought into existence. The English practice of undertaking all such great works, is very little understood abroad; there is not capital enough afloat, and the commercial audacity of the people has not yet arrived at such a high-pressure point. Almost the whole of the railways now under notice, have been constructed either by the governments of the respective countries, or by companies which require some sort of government guarantee before ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

Words linked to "High-pressure" : aggressive, hard-hitting