ˈair-lock
[air- I. 7.]
a. = lock n.2 10; also, a similar chamber in a space-craft, etc.
| 1857 Brit. Almanac 99 Each cylinder..is filled with compressed air, by which it is kept free from water, and by means of chambers at the top furnished with doors or valves, on the principle of the canal lock, and called ‘air-locks’. 1877 Encycl. Brit. VI. 63/1 A cylinder of wrought iron, within which a tubular chamber, provided with doors above and below, known as an air-lock. 1926 Blackw. Mag. Sept. 322/1 A diver could lie inside a great steel cylinder undergoing compression and have tea passed in to him through an airlock. 1951 A. C. Clarke Sands of Mars ii. 12 Help him through the airlock when the tender couples up. |
b. [air- I. 5.] A stoppage of the flow of liquid in a pump or pipe by a bubble of air. So air-locking.
| 1909 in Webster. 1920 Flight XII. 219/1 The avoidance of air-locks in pipe systems. 1927 D. L. Sayers Unnatural Death xi. 132 ‘Blew through the filler-cap,’ said his lordship with a grin. ‘Air-lock in the feed, old son, that's all.’ 1936 Aircraft Engin. Nov. 321/1 Airlocking was studied in the laboratory by observing the behaviour of a fuel-air system in glass pipes. |