Carburetors

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A device that mixes air with fuel for combustion in an internal combustion engine
2. a mechanism regulating the fuel-air ratio for optimal engine performance
3. an apparatus essential for engine startup and operation in various vehicles

Etymology: "Carburetors" is the plural of "carburetor," and the word's first sense had nothing to do with cars. In 1862 it named a device for enriching an illuminating gas with carbon-rich fuel, a process that made coal gas burn brighter for lighting. The engine sense only arrived in 1896, when the same kind of mixing device was adapted to feed petrol vapour into the early motor vehicle. The word is built from "carburet," meaning to combine carbon with something else, which itself comes from "carbon," plus the agent suffix "-or," which marks a device or person that does a thing. So the carburetor is, in name, a thing that carburets. The engine part kept the chemistry of its original job: it mixes fuel with air, which is exactly what the 1862 apparatus did with gas.

Synonyms: mixers, fuel mixers