Percolators

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of coffee brewing apparatus using boiling water that circulates through ground coffee and back into a reservoir
2. Devices designed to brew coffee by continuously cycling hot water through coffee grounds until the desired strength is achieved
3. Appliances for brewing coffee that force water through coffee grounds, creating a concentrated beverage through percolation techniques

Etymology: The plural "percolators" is simply the plural of "percolator," the machine that brews coffee by cycling hot water up through a column and back down through grounds. The machine's name comes from "percolate," a verb that once described liquid slowly seeping through a porous material, and the suffix "-or" that turns the verb into a noun for the thing that performs the action. That suffix has a long pedigree. It descends from a Proto-Italic ending that Latin developed into "-tor," used to form agent nouns, and it passed into English through Old French and Middle English as "-our" before settling into the modern "-or" spelling. English has used the ending for centuries to name doers and devices, so "percolator" fits a long tradition of tools named for what they do.

Synonyms: coffee maker, brewer, drip coffee maker, filter, infuser