white heats

Noun

white heat (countable and uncountable, plural white heats)

1. The state or temperature at which matter emits white light.
   • George comes over to work the doors while you swing well-broken coal into flame fiercer than ever, at pure white heat that drives you back scorched and blind from each quick shot.1956 February, W. A. Tuplin, “Hot Work on a "Star"”, in Railway Magazine, page 94
2. A state of intensive activity.
3. A critical situation which causes a significant development in something; a force that metaphorically forges something.
   • The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry.1963, Harold Wilson, quotee, The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations, Penguin UK, →ISBN
4. (UK) A strategy for economic growth through technological development, especially associated with the government of Harold Wilson.
   • Wilson's white-heat strategy continued down the same path; its potency as a vote winner in its own right offset by the attention ministers themselves gave to modernising rhetoric.1997 June 30, Kevin Jefferys, Retreat from New Jerusalem: British Politics, 1951-64, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 194