salamander

1. (mythology) A creature much like a lizard that is resistant to and lives in fire (in which it is often depicted in heraldry), hence the elemental being of fire.Examples: "“Not a chance, Ranger,” Bob Mason was speaking. “This little cuss is a salamander. He's been travelling through fire all day and there isn't a blister on him. …”"; ""There is a vulgar error," says the author of the Brief Natural History, p. 91, "that a salamander lives in the fire. Yet both Galen and Dioscorides refute this opinion; and Mathiolus, in his Commentaries upon Dioscorides, a very famous physician, affirms of them, that by casting of many a salamander into the fire for tryal he found it false. The same experiment is likewise avouched by Joubertus.""countableuncountable

2. (cooking) A metal utensil with a flat head which is heated and put over a dish to brown the top.Examples: "The salamander, a fairly long metal utensil with a flat rounded head, was left in the fire until red hot and then used to brown the top of a dish without further cooking."countableuncountable

3. (cooking) A small broiler (North America) or grill (Britain) that heats the food from above, used in professional cookery primarily for browning.Examples: "The chef first put the steak under the salamander to sear the outside."; "Overfired grills, or salamanders, can, in addition, be used for making toast and salamandering. They have the heat source above the food[…]. This may comprise sets of burners firing below refractory or metal frets, or surface combustion plaques."countableuncountable

4. (archaic) A pouched gopher (Geomys pinetis etc.)archaiccountableuncountable

5. (UK, obsolete) A large poker.Examples: "Multitudes had little Tin Kettles in their Houses, with Small-coal kindled, to light their Pipes withal; though in some places they use Candles, in others Salamanders"UKcountableobsoleteuncountable

6. (metallurgy, uncountable) Solidified material in a furnace hearth.Examples: "Salamander tapping is done at the salamander base, which is the bottom-most level of the liquid pool in a blast furnace hearth. A high degree of precision is required to tap the salamander base effectively"Synonyms: Shadrachuncountable