crucible

1. (chemistry) A cup-shaped piece of laboratory equipment used to contain chemical compounds when heating them to very high temperatures.Examples: "In one corner of the closet was a very small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible—two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube, which was close to the brim."

2. (figuratively) A very difficult and trying experience, that acts as a refining or hardening process.Examples: "But, in considering an author and his works as one, a sufficient distinction is not drawn between the ideal and the real: the last is only given by being past through the crucible of the first."; "We should give our support to the liberation of the captive nations of the world and deliver our compatriots from their crucible of suffering. In other words, we should take up the difficult task of reshaping the world’s destiny by destroying the tyrannical Communist rule now afflicting the earth and by delivering humankind from the Red holocaust."; "Some of our ancestors faced trials that we will never know—the snows of Valley Forge; the crucible of a bitter, bloody civil war; and the incredible hardships endured in taming a savage wilderness."figuratively