Ozonator

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A mechanism that generates ozone to help purify air and eliminate contaminants in indoor spaces
2. An instrument specifically engineered to create ozone for the purpose of sanitizing and improving air quality
3. A machine designed to generate ozone as a means to clean and disinfect indoor air

Etymology: Ozone itself was named in 1840 by the German chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein, who drew the Greek verb "ozein" ("to smell") because of the sharp odour produced when electricity passes through air or water. Adding "-ate" gave the verb "ozonate," meaning to treat something with ozone, and the suffix "-or," which marks a thing or agent that performs an action, produced "ozonator." The word is therefore a simple chain of derivations: a Greek word for smell, a chemist's coinage, and two English suffixes. The ozonator is a machine built on that chemical fact. It passes electricity through air, or uses ultraviolet light, to split oxygen molecules and let them recombine into ozone, which then reacts with odour-causing and other airborne compounds. The name thus describes the device by its function, the same way "generator" describes something that generates.