salamandernoun/ˈsæləˌmændə/

• 1

  A long, slender, chiefly terrestrial amphibian of the order Caudata, superficially resembling a lizard.

  • […]and most plainly Pierius, whose words in his hieroglyphicks are these: "Whereas it is commonly said that a salamander extinguisheth fire, we have found by experience that it is so far from quenching hot coals, that it dyeth immediately therein."
  • Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies.[…]The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800 square kilometers in northeastern North Dakota.
• 2

  human-sciencesmysticismmythologyA 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.

  • “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."
• 3

  cookingfoodlifestyleA metal utensil with a flat head which is heated and put over a dish to brown the top.

  • 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.
• 4

  cookingfoodlifestyleA small broiler (North America) or grill (Britain) that heats the food from above, used in professional cookery primarily for browning.

  • 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.
• 5

  archaicA pouched gopher (Geomys pinetis etc.)

• 6

  obsoleteA large poker.

  • 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
• 7

  engineeringmetallurgynatural-sciencesSolidified material in a furnace hearth.

  • 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
• 8

  businessconstructionmanufacturingA portable stove used to heat or dry buildings under construction.

  • The necessary fires alone — the salamanders and tinner's pots — had caused dozens of small blazes.

salamanderverb/ˈsæləˌmændə/

• 1

  To use a salamander (cooking utensil) in a cooking process.

  • When cold, sprinkle the custard thickly with sugar and salamander it.
  • 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.