Definition of "asbestos"

Consul Baker, of Antung, China, states that valuable deposits of asbestos have been found in the vicinity of Kuantien, a small town lying about 45 miles northeast of Antung. […] There are three mines now in operation, each employing about 30 workers. These workers, however, are mostly farmers who devote only their spare time to mining and use simply hammers and chisels and gather only the asbestos which lies near the surface.

1913 February, “Asbestos Mines in China”, in Mines and Minerals‎, volume XXXIII, number 7, Scranton, PA, page 398, column 3

Insulation against sound and changes in external temperature is given by a thickness of asbestos on the inside of the panels.

1946 November and December, “New L.M.S.R. Royal Coaches”, in Railway Magazine, page 371

“Be sure you have plenty of kindling before you begin. They are rather non-inflammable and well asbestosed, so to speak.”

1919, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 192, page 93, column 4

The latter department will be asbestosed without according to the idea of Professor Swain, whose deductions are that you should wear an overcoat in summer for the reason that what will keep out the cold will keep out the heat.

1924, International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers’ Union Journal, volume 19, page 22, column 1

Q. And you considered asbestosing the interior as part of your job, is that correct? A. That’s right.

1960, Records & Briefs, New York, page 538

Though respectable ladies thought him a rake, He red-leaded Mrs. Brown’s gutter and spout And asbestosed the furnace for Mrs. Stout, And oh, the six weeks he spent refluing The winter home of Mrs. Hewing!

1961, Midwest, page 11

Compound (I) (1.5 g.) and benzaldehyde (1.1 g.) were refluxed in glacial acetic acid (30-35 ml.) in presence of fused sodium acetate (2.6 g.) on an asbestosed wire gauge for 3 hr.

1966, Journal of the Indian Chemical Society, page 658

The other day one of the men doing the asbestosing on the acid retorts fell in a sulphuric sedimentation tank.

1969, Peter Such, Fallout, House of Anansi Press, page 62

Alginate impressions of the “asbestosed” casts are then made and poured in plaster of paris.

1973, International Journal of Orthodontics, volume 11, page 56, column 2

He actually was inside the asbestosed box buried under a roaring fire.

1986, John Booth, Wonders of Magic: A Veteran Magician’s Book of Original Tricks, Concepts, Pictures, Memoirs, and Conjuring History, Ridgeway Press, page 116

CLASS Nos. 26035 and 26038 have been de-asbestosed by MC Metals, of Glasgow, ready for their move to the South Yorkshire Railway at Meadowhall.

1995, The Railway Magazine, volume 141, page 32, column 2

Since low temperature is prevailing in hilly regions, tiled or asbestosed houses can be used to raise the room temperature.

1996, Kisan World, volume 23, page 55, column 1

Under Barroso, Commissioners were re-housed together in the new, refurbished (de-asbestosed) Berlaymont building in central Brussels.

2008, John Peterson, Andrea Birdsall, “4. The European Commission: enlargement as reinvention?”, in Edward Best, Thomas Christiansen, Pierpaolo Settembri, editors, The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union: Continuity and Change, Edward Elgar Publishing, page 61

Now Bush wondered / If the collapse of the three buildings could / Somehow be linked to an insurance scam / To win a fortune from asbestosed steel.

2010, Nicholas Hagger, “Book One: September 11th: America under Attack”, “Invocations to Homer, Milton, Heath-Stubbs, Woodrow Wilson and Roosevelt”, in Armageddon: The Triumph of Universal Order: An Epic Poem on The War on Terror and of Holy-War Crusaders, O Books, page 45

Lungs asbestosed / unable to breath[sic] / and so incapable / of producing for profit / sent away without delay / so a fresh lunged / could occupy / the vacant place.

1990, The Nairobi Law Monthly, page 2, column 3

Is Malcolm J. Miller’s South Carolina Sinking Fund partly immune, partly asbestosed, or what?

1922, The Insurance Press, volume 54, page 6, column 3

Whatever air’s asbestosing the prayers / Of this sparse April parlour must splutter / To dust until it dismantles itself.

1992, Chapman, page 84

Not enough if you / garlanded me before twenty, / asbestosed me several times / around the conjugal fire.

1995, Tejdeep, Caught in a Stampede, Sterling Publishers, page 110

Like the house, I’d had my shiny youth of new love, my stuccoed divorce, my asbestosed fallout of pipe pain and dry-rot, my ill-conceived disco years, and my disastrous mid-life reno.

2017, Karl Meade, Odd Jobs: Misadventures of the Copy-Cat Cat Burglars, FriesenPress