capacitor

noun
ca·​pac·​i·​tor | \ kə-ˈpa-sə-tər How to pronounce capacitor (audio) \

Definition of capacitor

: a device that is used to store electrical energy

Examples of capacitor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The outer cylinder is earthed while the inner one is not, creating a capacitor. The Economist, "How to wring power from the night air," 1 Aug. 2019 The outer cylinder is earthed while the inner one is not, creating a capacitor. The Economist, "How to wring power from the night air," 3 Aug. 2019 The 90-tesla magnet at LNCMI in Toulouse works by charging a bank of 600 capacitors, then discharging them all at once into a coil the size of a trash can. Quanta Magazine, "The Quantum Secret to Superconductivity," 22 Feb. 2016 Unless, of course, your car is equipped with a flux capacitor and plutonium is plentiful. Rosy Cordero, EW.com, "Listen to the first original song from the Back to the Future musical," 10 June 2019 The destroyers need a capacitor system to store and then quickly surge power to a laser. Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, "After Only 3 Years in Service, the USS Zumwalt’s Mission Is Changing," 17 May 2019 Making clean audio depends a lot of getting noise-free power, so EVGA uses AudioNote capacitors and resistors in the card as well as a Texas Instrument power-regulation circuit. Gordon Mah Ung, PCWorld, "EVGA gets into sound cards with Nu Audio, a high-end board that delivers 'lifelike' gaming," 8 Jan. 2019 Devices like game machines and smartphones have hundreds of the part known as a multilayer ceramic capacitor. Takashi Mochizuki, WSJ, "Can’t Find a PlayStation 4? Blame It On a Part Barely Bigger Than a Speck," 29 June 2018 There’s also German-made WIMA capacitors and AKM 4493 DACS and AKM 5572 ADCs. Gordon Mah Ung, PCWorld, "EVGA gets into sound cards with Nu Audio, a high-end board that delivers 'lifelike' gaming," 8 Jan. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'capacitor.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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First Known Use of capacitor

1925, in the meaning defined above

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More Definitions for capacitor

capacitor

noun

English Language Learners Definition of capacitor

technical : a device that is used to store electrical energy

capacitor

noun
ca·​pac·​i·​tor | \ kə-ˈpas-ət-ər How to pronounce capacitor (audio) \

Medical Definition of capacitor

: a device giving capacitance and usually consisting of conducting plates or foils separated by thin layers of dielectric (as air or mica) with the plates on opposite sides of the dielectric layers oppositely charged by a source of voltage and the electrical energy of the charged system stored in the polarized dielectric