Multivibrator

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An electronic oscillator circuit that rapidly alternates between two unstable states, producing a square-wave output used for timing and signal generation
2. A two-state electronic circuit whose output flips back and forth repeatedly, commonly used to generate pulses or clock signals in electronic devices
3. A type of switching circuit with two active elements that toggle between high and low output levels to create regular timing pulses

Etymology: A multivibrator is a circuit, not a word that existed in antiquity, and its name is a plain modern compound: "multi-" from Latin "multus", meaning "many" or "much", joined to "vibrator", an agent noun from "vibrate". The prefix has a long road into English, passing through Latin "multi-" combining forms and Middle English before settling into the productive scientific prefix it is today. The sense of the compound is literal. A multivibrator is an electronic circuit with two amplifying stages whose outputs feed back into each other, so that it swings repeatedly between two states and produces a train of pulses or square waves. The name describes that behavior: it is a device that vibrates or oscillates many times in succession, switching rapidly between states rather than holding one.

Synonyms: flip-flop