refrigerator
(rɪˈfrɪdʒəreɪtə(r))
[f. refrigerate v. + -or. Cf. obs. F. refrigerateur (Cotgr.).]
1. That which refrigerates or cools. In later use transf. from 2.
| 1611 Cotgr., Refrigerateur, a refrigerator, refresher, cooler. 1862 Rawlinson Anc. Mon., Assyria ii. I. 267 Trees, those great refrigerators. 1876 Fortn. Rev. Mar. 347 An enormous natural refrigerator in the shape of the Rosegg glacier. |
| transf. and fig. 1809 Malkin Gil Blas vii. x. ¶4 A reflection..so virtuous acted as a refrigerator on my spirits. 1852 Dickens Bleak Ho. xl, He moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator. |
2. An apparatus, vessel, or chamber for producing or maintaining a low degree of temperature.
The following are some of the commoner specific applications of the term:
a. A chamber or vat for cooling worts in a brewery.
b. Any vessel, chamber, or apparatus in which the contents are preserved by maintaining a temperature near, at, or below freezing point,
esp. in the cold storage of food.
c. An ice-making machine.
d. = refrigeratory n. 1.
e. That part of a surface-condenser in which the steam evaporated from salt-water is condensed into fresh water to supply the boilers of marine engines.
f. (Incorrectly applied to) an arrangement whereby the feed-water is warmed on its way to the boiler of a marine engine by a current of hot waste brine pumped from the boiler.
| 1824 Specif. Maudslay & Field's Patent No. 5021. 3 Passing the hot brine and the supply water for the boiler through a system of tubes or vessels of extended surface called a refrigerator. 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 1183 [The vapour] may be conducted to a worm or refrigerator, to be cooled in the ordinary way. 1841 C. Cist Cincinnati in 1841 (Advt.), Refrigerators or Ice Chests. 1861 Wynter Soc. Bees 192 Every man who possesses a refrigerator has the power of arresting for a time the natural decay of animal and vegetable substances. 1881 Marine Engineer 1 Jan. 226 We think the time is not far distant when all Australian and Eastern liners will be fitted throughout with refrigerators. 1958 Times 13 Jan. 11/2 Only 10 per cent. of the population of this island have refrigerators, against 90 per cent. in the United States. 1975 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Sept. 39/1 My first impression was that the New Zealand farm equipment manufacturers were attempting to ‘sell refrigerators to the Eskimos’, because, among the massive displays by the British manufacturers, a comparative handful of New Zealand firms were trying to enter an overcrowded market. |
3. attrib. and
Comb., as
refrigerator beef,
refrigerator car,
refrigerator engineer,
refrigerator-freezer,
refrigerator-maker,
refrigerator ship,
refrigerator truck.
| 1881 Chicago Times 4 June, American refrigerator beef sold at London and Liverpool to-day at 5½d. |
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. 1911/1 Refrigerator-car. (Railway.) 1883 Goode Fish. Indust. U.S.A. 9 (Fish. Exh. Publ.), Refrigerator cars carry unfrozen fish from sea and lake inland. |
| 1909 Westm. Gaz. 6 Sept. 5/3 The second refrigerator-engineer..informed us that the boats had put off. 1960 M. Spark Ballad of Peckham Rye ii. 27 Humphrey Place, refrigerator engineer of Freeze-eezy's. |
| 1963 Which? 6 Feb. 42/1 The combined refrigerator-freezer..will hold more frozen food than a refrigerator's freezing compartment. 1976 Woman's Day (U.S.) Nov. 125 Self-defrosting refrigerator-freezer has built-in energy-saving condenser. |
| 1950 Manch. Guardian Weekly 7 Dec. 15/3 The Sullivan tunes in the interest of the butcher and baker and refrigerator-maker. |
| 1877 in Sci. Amer. (1977) Jan. 14/3 A despatch from M. Tellier to the French Academy of Sciences announces the arrival of the refrigerator ship Frigorific at Pernambuco, Brazil. 1921 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 21 Oct. 12/5 The Moliere, another refrigerator ship..is at Seattle loading. 1976 Islander (Victoria, B.C.) 12 Sept. 10/1 A refrigerator ship carrying, eggs, bacon and steel to England. |
| 1971 P. O'Donnell Impossible Virgin x. 211 Get Brunel boxed up and put in the refrigerator truck. 1974 R. B. Parker God save Child vi. 48 A big refrigerator truck lumbered by on the highway. |