burster
(ˈbɜːstə(r))
[f. burst v. + -er1.]
1. a. He who, or that which, bursts; spec. (Artillery) a charge of gunpowder for bursting a shell, or the bag containing it. Hence burster-bag.
| 1611 Cotgr., Rompeur, a burster, a breaker. 1862 F. Griffiths Artil. Man. (ed. 9) 193 The segment shells..are each charged with a burster, containing powder. 1876 Daily News 22 Sept. 3/5 The Palliser shells will have capacity for a 25 lbs. burster. |
b. fig. ? An exhausting piece of exercise, something which ‘takes the wind out’ of one.
| 1851 Illustr. Lond. News 99 A pace that would have been a burster to many a fresh man. |
c. ? Racing slang. A heavy fall; a ‘cropper’.
| 1863 Even. Standard 24 Apr., Benedict came down a burster, and was out of the race. |
d. A machine or device for bursting stationery (see burst v. 9 d).
| 1950 Mod. Office Appliances (Office Appliance Trade Assoc.) (ed. 4) iii. 330 (caption) Burster unit for single-ply forms. 1962 Mode Apr. 14 After the customer's continuous stationery has been decollated on either of these machines, it is fed into a burster for separating into single forms. 1980 Daily Tel. 23 Apr. 3 (Advt.), Products include..filing cabinets,..bursters, decollators and forms handling equipment. 1985 Neat Ideas Catal. Spring 3/1 The new burster pnk610 separates continuous form stationery into separate sheets and stacks them into an adjustable size stacker tray. |
2. In Australia and N.Z.: see quot. (Usually buster.)
| 1851 Austral. & N.Z. Gaz. 29 Nov. 483 The order of the day has been for some time past, rain, rainbows, and southerly bursters. 1879 Wallace Australas. ii. 31 The well-known southerly ‘bursters’ are violent storms of wind occurring in summer. 1922 W. G. Kendrew Climates of Continents xlvii. 364 On the east coast of the continent..cold winds from the south, known as Southerly Bursters. Ibid. 365 A striking roll of cumulus cloud may accompany the Burster, and there is usually heavy rain. |
3. Astr. = x-ray burster s.v. X rays n. pl. 5 b; an emitter of other electromagnetic radiation with analogous intermittent emission.
| 1976 Nature 17 June 562/2 A new type of time variability of cosmic X-ray sources (‘bursters’) was discovered from Astronomical Netherlands Satellite..observations. 1977 Daily Tel. 30 Apr. 8/4 The explosions have been nicknamed ‘bursters’ since they consist of violent bursts of X-rays and are not associated with the more familiar ‘novae’ and ‘supernovae’ explosions of stars. 1978 Pasachoff & Kutner University Astron. xxv. 632 Some two dozen bursters are now known; only a handful are in globular clusters. 1982 Sci. Amer. Mar. 62/3 Of the objects in space that defy the slow rhythms of the stars by emitting short pulses of intense electromagnetic radiation, the ones most recently discovered are the gamma-ray bursters. |