injector
(ɪnˈdʒɛktə(r))
[agent-n. f. L. injicĕre to inject.]
1. a. A contrivance for injecting; an apparatus for injecting water into the boiler of a steam-engine. Also, a device for injecting fuel into the combustion chamber or its intakes in an internal-combustion engine (or into the furnace of a steam engine, quot. 1890).
| 1744 Warrick in Phil. Trans. XLIII. 16 My Apparatus was, a large Trois-quarts..an Injector, capable of containing Two or Three Pints, adapted thereto. 1825 J. Nicholson Operat. Mechanic 292 The diameter of the piston of the small pump or injector. 1876 R. Routledge Discov. 12 The injector is applicable to stationary, locomotive, or marine engines. 1890 W. Robinson Gas & Petroleum Engines iv. 96 This oil is used to produce steam in stationary boilers. The oil is forced into the furnace in the form of fine spray by steam or compressed air, through injectors, and mixed with the air required for the combustion. 1912 R. B. Whitman Gas-Engine Princ. v. 72 This pressure vaporizer, or injector, is used on 2-cycle engines, the pressure being obtained from the crank case... An injector of this kind permits the use of kerosene. 1914, 1962 [see fuel injector (fuel n. 4 b)]. 1932 Compression Ignition Engines ix. 115 In some buses run by a big city in the North only three cases of choked injectors have occurred in a year's running. 1947 Jrnl. Brit. Interplanetary Soc. VI. 107 The rocket motor can be divided into..the propellant injectors, combustion chamber and expansion nozzle. 1963 Adv. Space Sci. & Technol. Suppl. I. 173 In a liquid bipropellant rocket engine the injector serves the same function as the carburetor of a gasoline engine. In addition to atomizing and mixing the liquids, it meters the flow to the combustion chamber. |
b. Something that injects (in sense 1 c), e.g. particles into an accelerator, or charge carriers into a semiconductor device.
| 1945 Jrnl. Appl. Physics XVI. 593/2 The polarity of the charge on the capacitors was made so as to make the second..half-cycle the period of electron acceleration thereby allowing charging of the capacitors in the injector and orbit shift circuits during the first half-cycle. 1953 Proc. IRE XLI. 1715/1 The efficiency of the diodes as hole injectors is lower than that usually considered desirable. 1962 [see emitter 2]. 1972 Physics Bull. Mar. 144/2 The Linac injector is designed to accelerate protons..along its drift tube structure to energies of 19·2 MeV. |
2. A person who injects.
| 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. II. 895 note, All authors agree that withdrawal [of morphine] is more distressing to the injector than to the eater of the drug. |