breathalyser
(ˈbrɛθəlaɪzə(r))
Also -zer.
[f. breath + analyser, -zer.]
(See quot. 19601.) Also attrib.
| 1960 Times 19 Jan. 7/4 The Breathalyser, an American instrument for measuring the percentage of alcohol in the blood from a breath sample, was put on view..yesterday. 1960 Daily Mail 19 Jan. 5/1 The Breathalyzer, the snap-test machine..for picking out drunken drivers. 1960 News Chron. 16 June 6/1 The breathalyser test is favoured by many. 1967 Spectator 20 Oct. 450/2 It may well be that the breathalyser test works and one cause of death on the roads has been banished from the scene. |
Hence (as back-formations) ˈbreathalyse v. trans., to subject (someone) to a test with a breathalyser; ˈbreathalysed ppl. a.
| 1967 Times 1 Dec. 8/3 Would it not be sensible to amend the Bill so that the police power to stop and ‘breathalyse’ people should be limited? 1967 New Statesman 29 Dec. 901/1 The matey breathalysed population drives obediently round in business-like pursuit of teenage love and entertaining kitchen furniture. 1978 Cornish Guardian 27 Apr. 12/3 A man..refused to be breathalysed as he lay in a hospital bed with a broken neck after a motor-cycle accident. 1983 Financial Times 22 Jan. 9 Hundreds of thousands of motorists..put themselves at risk of being breathalysed and prosecuted for being drunk in charge of a car. |