Refrigerators

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A domestic device designed to keep food and liquids cold while preventing spoilage through refrigeration technology
2. An appliance that cools and preserves consumables by removing heat through a refrigeration cycle
3. A household machine that lowers temperature to keep food fresh and beverages chilled

Etymology: "Refrigerators" is simply the plural of "refrigerator," so the story belongs to the singular. The noun is borrowed from Medieval Latin "refrigerator," meaning "cooler," a word built on the Latin "refrigerare," to make cool again. Its ancestry runs back to classical Latin "frigus," cold, which also gave English words like "frigid" and "frost" in various forms. The Medieval Latin source points to a meaning that was once broader than a machine. A refrigerator was originally any place or vessel built to keep things cool, and the word's sense narrowed over time to the household appliance that now hums in kitchens. The machine itself came later, and the word followed the technology rather than the other way around.

Synonyms: fridges