The present invention generally relates, in certain aspects, to corrosion inhibiting compositions useful for metalworking fluids, as well as concentrates, additives and metalworking fluids containing such compositions. The invention furthermore relates, in some aspects, to the use of such compositions for providing to a metalworking fluid one or more of anticorrosion performance, antifoam performance, antiwear performance, load carrying capacity, long fluid life, biological stability, lubricity, hard water tolerance, formulation stability.

A water-soluble lubricant including a cyclic compound (A) having a ring structure (a) including at least one substructure represented by the following formula (i) or (ii):

##STR00001##

in the above formula, * represents a binding site. The water-soluble lubricant is used in an aqueous metalworking fluid and in a method of metalworking.