analyser, -zer
(ˈænəlaɪzər)
[f. as prec. + -er1.]
1. He who or that which analyzes.
| 1627 Bp. Hall Apol. agst. Brownists §52, I need no better analyser than your selfe. 1759–67 Sterne Tr. Shandy (1802) III. xxxviii. 377 Thou faithful analyzer of my Disgrazias. 1823 J. Harrison (title) Etymological Enchiridion or Practical Analyzer shewing the Etymon or Root of all the Words in the English Tongue. 1869 J. Martineau Ess. II. 10 Bacon—the great analyzer of common sense. |
2. Chem. & Physics. He who analyzes; = analyst 2.
| 1756 C. Lucas Ess. Waters III. 305 Our new analysers..make it..to suit their different purposes. 1865 Pall Mall G. 25 Aug. 9/2 The Calcutta analyzers call it an impure peat. 1875 Emerson Lett. & Soc. Aims i. 12 The hardest chemist, the severest analyzer. |
3. In the polariscope, an apparatus employed to exhibit the fact that the light has been polarized.
| 1863 Atkinson Ganot's Physics §638 Every instrument for investigating the properties of polarised light consists essentially of two parts, one for polarising the light, the other for ascertaining the fact of light having undergone polarisation The former part is called the polariser, the latter the analyser. 1867 Sir J. Herschel Fam. Lect. Sc. (1871) 382 The tourmaline plate between the eye and the crystal, which we shall call the ‘analyzing plate,’ or the ‘analyzer.’ |