discriminatorn.

1663 Horrid Conspiracie New Rebellion Ireland 12 William Dod, a Clerk in the Discriminators Office.

a1676 M. Hale Contempl. Moral & Divine: 3rd Pt. (1696) 81 A discerner or discriminator of the thoughts and intents of the Heart.

1696 H. Hill Dialogue Timotheus & Judas 37 A Common-Placer only,..between whom and this Crawling Scribler, there cannot be the Thousandth part of Comparison for Worth and Learning, that there is for Poetry, between an Honourable Discriminator and a Ballad-maker.

1795 Scots Mag. Apr. 219/1 The weak, who neglect to examine those infallible discriminators between true and false prophets.

1829 Trans. Royal Asiatic Soc. 2 183 He [sc. the judge] discriminates, and is, consequently, the discriminator (viváca).

1906 Sat. Rev. 7 July 19/1 Aristarchus was a discriminator between the genuine and the forged.

2009 M. Boylan in J.-S. Gordon Morality & Justice xiv. 184 Love is a great motivator but not a fine discriminator.

1943 Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. 56 173 The pulse-rate..stands below these two forms of reaction [sc. hand-movement and psychogalvanic response] in its discrimination between Occidental and Oriental, but stands above both of them as a discriminator of the two Oriental peoples.

1961 Lancet 12 Aug. 360/1 The high number of poor discriminators is an indication that most of them can be omitted in future and other questions substituted.

1982 N. Willems Eng. Intonation from Dutch Point of View iii. 65 The position of the pitch movements was not a significant discriminator between Dutch and English pitch contours.

2012 R. Benjamin New Limits Educ. Policy iv. 40 Grade point average is no longer the useful discriminator that it was in earlier decades.

1833 R. Hare in Jrnl. Franklin Inst. 16 5 The electrometer, constructed as herein described, constitutes an electrical indicator, which may enable us to discover the electromotive powers of various substances arranged as disks in a series... The excitement of the electrified body being known, that of the poles may be detected; or the latter being known, the excitement of the body may be discovered. This application of the electric series is not, however, a new idea. I saw many years ago a notice of an electrometer, associated with an electric column, in such manner, as to be used as an electrical discriminator.

1915 U.S. Patent 1,141,717 3/2 An amplifier and discriminator for wireless signal receiving apparatus, comprising an auxiliary source of current adapted to excite the receiving circuits with a frequency near to, and different from the frequency of the current of the received waves.

1935 Proc. IRE 23 1126 A frequency discriminator or frequency sensitive detector that generates a bias varying with changes of the intermediate-frequency signal carrier frequency.

1947 Nature 4 Jan. 16/1 In order to render a frequency-modulated signal audible, the receiver uses a device known as a ‘discriminator’, which in effect converts it into an amplitude-modulated signal, which may then be detected by any of the usual methods.

1962 F. J. M. Farley Elem. Pulse Circuits (ed. 2) i. 19 This circuit is an example of a discriminator, that is, a circuit which transmits only the upper portion of a pulse.

2002 R. Miller & M. R. Miller Electronics Easy Way (ed. 4) xii. 252 In FM the demodulator may be a discriminator, a ratio detector, or a slope detector.

1926 G. Wilkinson in Brit. Patent 247,705 3/1 I append drawings showing its application to a two-rate meter in which the change-over from one dial to the other..is effected by a driving wheel on a rocking bar... Fig. 2 is an elevation showing the electrical arrangement hereinafter termed ‘the discriminator’ fixed on the back plate of the counter frame.

1931 S. R. Roget Dict. Electr. Terms (ed. 2) 89/2 Discriminator, an instrument used with an earlier system of charging of an electric supply.