laboratory
(ləˈbɒrətərɪ, ˈlæbərətərɪ)
Also 7 laboritary, labratory.
[ad. med.L. labōrātōri-um, f. L. labōrāre to labour: see -ory. Cf. F. laboratoire, It., Sp., Pg. laboratorio; also elaboratory.]
1. a. A building set apart for conducting practical investigations in natural science, orig. and esp. in chemistry, and for the elaboration or manufacture of chemical, medicinal, and like products.
| 1605 Timme Quersit. iii. 191 Wee commonly prouide that they bee prepared in our laboratorie. a 1637 B. Jonson Mercury Vind. Induction, A Laboratory or Alchemist's work⁓house. 1683 Wilding in Collect. (O.H.S.) I. 258 For seeing y⊇ Labratory..00 00 06. 1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. II. 392 He had a Laboratory to prepare all Medicines that he used on his Patients. 1765 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) III. 248 His best pieces were representations of chymists and their laboratories. 1802 Med. Jrnl. VIII. 87 To establish in London a laboratory, or manufacture of artificial mineral waters. 1812 Sir H. Davy Chem. Philos. Introd. 9 The greater number of the experiments were made in the laboratory of the Royal Institution. 1881 Sir W. Thomson in Nature 435 The electro-magnetic machine has been brought from the physical laboratory into the province of engineering. |
b. transf. and
fig.| 1664 Power Exper. Philos. i. 65 The Soul (like an excellent Chymist) in this internal Laboratory of Man, by a fermentation of our nourishment in the Stomach [etc.]. 1794 Sullivan View Nat. I. 461 Fissures and caverns of rocks are the laboratories, where such operations are carried on. 1814 Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. 15 The soil is the laboratory in which the food is prepared. 1860 Maury Phys. Geog. Sea xviii. §740 Like the atmosphere it [the sea] is a laboratory in which wonders by processes the most exquisite are continually going on. 1870 J. H. Newman Gram. Assent ii. viii. 260 A notion neatly turned out of the laboratory of the mind. |
2. Mil. ‘A department of an arsenal for the manufacture and examination of ammunition and combustible stores’ (Voyle
Milit. Dict. 1876).
| 1716 Lond. Gaz. No. 5439/3 The Ammunition Laboratory..was..set on Fire. 1804 Wellington Let. in Gurw. Desp. (1837) III. 528 The arsenal, the laboratory [etc.]..are under his immediate superintendence. 1846 Greener Gunnery 85 A fuse, invented..by..a person employed in the laboratory at Woolwich. |
3. Metallurgy. ‘The space between the fire and flue-bridges of a reverberatory furnace in which the work is performed; also called the
kitchen and the
hearth’ (Raymond
Mining Gloss. 1881).
| 1839 Ure Dict. Arts, etc. 822 The flame and the smoke which escape from the sole or laboratory pass into condensing chambers. 1877 Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 393 The laboratory is 9 feet long, 6 feet 9 inches wide, and connects with the chimney, 2 feet 6 inches square, by a flue. |
4. attrib., as
laboratory apparatus,
laboratory chemist,
laboratory experiment,
laboratory fire,
laboratory forge,
laboratory furnace,
laboratory machinery,
laboratory man, (sense 2)
laboratory stores,
laboratory work;
laboratory animal, any animal (
e.g. rat, monkey, mouse) commonly used for experiments in a laboratory;
laboratory-chest, a chest containing ammunition and explosive stores;
laboratory frame (of reference)
Nuclear Physics, the frame of reference in which a laboratory is stationary, and with respect to which measurements of particle energy, velocity, etc., are generally made (see
quot. 1958);
laboratory system Nuclear Physics = laboratory frame.
| 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VI. 517 The so-called ‘irritation contracture’ observable in the monkey (but not in other *laboratory animals). 1937 Nature 24 July 155/1 Among those using this fish as a ‘laboratory animal’. |
| 1860 Piesse Lab. Chem. Wonders 145 As the botanist does with plants so does the *laboratory-chemist with the salts. |
| 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1780) D d, A *laboratory-chest is to be on board each bomb-vessel, in the captain's cabin, in which all the small stores are to be kept. |
| 1898 Daily News 8 Feb. 5/2 Most of this evidence has had to be tested by *laboratory experiments. |
| 1870 Tyndall Heat v. §185. 148 My assistant dissolved the substance in a pan over our *laboratory fire. |
| 1958 O. R. Frisch Nucl. Handbk. xix. 22 From a theoretical standpoint it is most convenient to calculate in a frame of reference in which the total linear momentum is zero (centre of mass frame, or..centre of momentum frame..). Experimentally the target particle is usually at rest in the *laboratory frame of reference. 1971 Sci. Amer. June 76/3 The theoretical analysis of events in the rapidly moving frame can be made with some degree of confidence and transformed back to the laboratory frame. In this way theory can be compared with experiment. |
| 1866 Odling Anim. Chem. iv. 78 Whether the chemist may not effect in his *laboratory-machinery a similar intercombination of deoxidised carbonic acid and water. |
| 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) IV. 449 Coal heavers, dustmen, *laboratory-men, and others who work among dry powdery substances. |
| 1828 Spearman Brit. Gunner 8 Ammunition and *Laboratory Stores. |
| 1951 D. Bohm Quantum Theory xxi. 525 Collisions usually involve firing particles at other particles that are at rest in the *laboratory system. |
| 1881 Lockyer in Nature 318 Whether we passed from low to high temperatures in *laboratory work. |
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Add:
[4.] laboratory assistant.
| 1889 Phil. Mag. XXVIII. 51 This curve was given to the *laboratory assistant, Mr. Davies, who cut out a pair of wooden templates to the pattern. 1989 Gamut Summer 40/1 The idea of a conniving laboratory assistant involving his superior in fraud smacks of class bias. |
laboratory bench.
| 1962 M. M. Solomon in H. F. Lewis Laboratory Planning vi. 67/1 Although an improvement over unprotected steel, the lead-coated steel *laboratory bench had certain weaknesses. 1985 R. Davies What's bred in Bone (1986) v. 291 A laboratory bench whose water supply came from visible, ugly piping. |
laboratory-bred a.| 1938 Ann. Trop. Med. & Parasitol. XXXII. 231 A fungal infection on the surface of *laboratory-bred [mosquito] larvae was also noted. 1970 Jrnl. Gen. Psychol. LXXXII. 28 Fertig & Layne emphasize the differences in data gathered from laboratory bred and field collected animals. |
laboratory coat.
| c 1936 Catal. Chem. Apparatus (F. E. Becker & Co.) (ed. 25) 54 *Laboratory coats, Men's. Strongly made, with step collar, outside breast pocket and two side pockets. 1977 Daily Tel. 28 Jan. 1/4 Nuclear workers reporting for work in radioactive areas are handed white laboratory coats and protective overshoes. |
laboratory worker.
| 1892 W. James in Philos. Rev. I. ii. 149 A psychology so understood might be safely handed over to the keeping of the men of facts, of the *laboratory workers and biologists. 1988 J. C. Bell et al. Zoonoses 172 Formol inactivated vaccine has been used for veterinarians and laboratory workers in enzootic areas. |
laboratory school U.S., a school attached to a college or university and used for educational research and in the training of student teachers and the demonstration of teaching methods; a demonstration school (see
demonstration n. 8).
| 1902 J. Dewey in Elementary School Teacher Nov. 203 It is proposed..to publish from time to time discussions..derived from the actual work of both the *Laboratory and Elementary Schools. 1929 Junior-Senior High School Clearinghouse Nov. 168/1 At the outset the laboratory school was an essential..feature of the teacher-training institution. 1981 Childhood Educ. Nov./Dec. 99/1 John Dewey served as Director of the laboratory school of the University of Chicago, known as the Dewey School. |