Voltammeter

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A measuring instrument that displays both the electrical potential difference and the current flowing in a circuit
2. An electrical device used to gauge voltage together with the amount of current passing through a conductor
3. A meter that combines the functions of a voltmeter and an ammeter to read electrical pressure and flow

Etymology: A voltammeter is simply a voltmeter and an ammeter rolled into one instrument: a device that measures both voltage and current. The name is a compound of "volt", after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, whose 1800 voltaic pile gave scientists their first steady source of electric current, and "ammeter", a meter for measuring current in amperes, itself named after André-Marie Ampère. The word thus honours two of the founders of electrical science in a single term. The formation follows the usual pattern of nineteenth-century electrical vocabulary, where the units were named for pioneers and "-meter" was attached to the name of each quantity measured. Because the device reads both quantities, its name blends the names of the two instruments it combines, much as a "fax" blends facsimile with telephone in other coinages.