electricadj.n.

a1626 F. Bacon Physiol. Remains in Baconiana (1679) 149 Crystal, Lapis Specularis, Glass, and other such Electric Bodies, if burnt, or scorch'd, draw not.

1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica ii. iv. 78 By Electrick bodies, I conceive..such as conveniently placed unto their objects attract all bodies palpable. View more context for this quotation

1722 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 32 104 A Down Feather tied to the end of a small Stick,..after its Fibres had been drawn towards the Tube, when that has been withdrawn, most of them would be drawn to the Stick, as if it had been an Electrick Body.

1744 J. T. Desaguliers in Philos. Trans. 1740–41 (Royal Soc.) 41 634 Bodies Electric per se are such in whom a Virtue of attracting and repelling small Bodies at a Distance is inherent.

1758 E. Darwin in Philos. Trans. 1757 (Royal Soc.) 50 252 There was no real opposition in the electric æther of glass, and that from wax.

1935 A. Wolf Hist. Sci. Technol. & Philos. xiii. 303 Gilbert's experiments were repeated from time to time, a number of additions being made to his list of electric substances.

1996 P. Lang From Myth to Mod. Mind II. viii. 328 According to his own explanation, when the electric substance is rubbed the heat generated releases a material effluvium which acts directly on the attracted material drawing it to the electrified substance.

1745 Philos. Trans. 1744–5 (Royal Soc.) 43 479 Being render'd electric to any high Degree might prove a dangerous Experiment to a Person habituated to a plentiful Use of spirituous Liquors.

1760 J. Wesley Desideratum 19 The Resistence of all Bodies..is exerted at their Surfaces, and caused by an electric Atmosphere of different Densities.

1789 G. White Nat. Hist. Selborne 305 No storm was in sight, nor within hearing, yet the air was strongly electric.

1807 T. Young Course Lect. Nat. Philos. I. liv. 680 A cake of a nonconducting substance, commonly of resin or of sulfur, is first excited by friction, and becomes negatively electric.

1851 Abstr. Papers Royal Soc. 1843–50 5 639 The phenomena of Repulsion between bodies negatively electric.

1873 Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 2 415 The topaz in Minas is..positively electric on one side whilst the other is negative.

1933 E. S. Allen tr. H. Reichenbach Atom & Cosmos viii. 125 Maxwell succeeded in deducing from his basic formulae others which affirm the propagation of the electric state through space in the form of waves.

1981 Isis 72 379 Mauduyt turned instead to the more familiar method of natural history, comparing the electric state of the atmosphere with other meteorological phenomena.

1745 Gentleman's Mag. Apr. 194/2 The grand chancellor of Poland..had an electric machine brought to him, made by his order, from Leipsic.

1764 Philos. Trans. 1763 (Royal Soc.) 53 84 I placed myself on an electric stand, and, being well electrised, threw my hat to an unelectrised person.

1844 C. Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit lii. 598 Mr. Pecksniff started back as if he had received the charge of an electric battery.

1882 Manufacturer & Builder Nov. 260/2 All the tools and most approved appliances used by dentists, including the electric drill.

1886 Sci. Amer. 16 Oct. 250/1 The heat of the portable electric lamp is quite inconsiderable.

1892 Dublin Rev. Apr. 437 The mirror is fixed to a gear~wheel driven off the spindle of a small alternating electric motor.

1907 Electr. Bull. May 9/2 Electric cooking will not appreciably increase the room temperature.

1921 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 9 Apr. 2/6 (advt.) Lessen the labors of your wife. Electric washing machines, electric dish washers, [etc.].

1931 C. E. Munroe & J. E. Tiffany Physical Testing Explosives 2 Blasting supplies, such as detonators and electric detonators.

1958 Life 19 May 43/3 (caption) Sunbeam electric appliances. Famous Sunbeam ‘Mixmaster’ hand mixer and original, genuine Sunbeam even heat automatic ‘Frypan’.

1991 Motor Boat & Yachting Jan. 284 (advt.) Equipment includes Bruce anchor, electric windlass, boarding ladder, davits.

1851 Sci. Amer. 3 Apr. 228/4 (heading) The electric piano... An improvement in pianos, causing the musical chord, by means of electric magnets, to continue an equable and free vibration for any length of time.

1901 Zion's Herald 16 Oct. 1321/2 It..is a first-class modern three-manual electric instrument.

1922 Musical Q. 8 115 What Music needs is, above all, a kind of electric instrument, conceived in a way similar to the basic idea of the ‘Telharmonium’.

1930 Port Arthur (Texas) News 6 July 12/6 An electric violin, the notes of which are amplified by radio tubes.

1938 Oxf. Compan. Music 288/1 Electric Guitars, Mandolins, &c., were by 1936 on the market.

1975 B. Artis Bluegrass vi. 69 An electric bass thumps a tubalike rhythm.

2005 ‘Noire’ Candy Licker iv. 42 I satisfied her by making a few extra cash runs to buy her a slamming electric keyboard.

1965 N.Y. Times 1 Aug. x. 11/2 ‘Bring back Cousin Emmy,’ shouted a young festivalgoer as Dylan's electric band played.

1966 Chicago Daily Defender 11 July 10/2 The electric Big City blues of Chuck Berry and Howlin' Wolf.

1989 Dirty Linen Spring 5 He formed one of the finest electric folk bands.

1999 S. Broughton et al. World Music: Rough Guide I. iii. 710/2 The term jit..has become a catch-all term for Zimbabwe's guitar-driven electric pop.

1884 N.Y. Times 5 Oct. 4/6 Other Captains claimed that the electrics troubled them in discerning the lighthouses in the mouth of the river.

1916 E. Wallace Clue of Twisted Candle (1917) xiii. 149 He felt for the switch of the electric.

1950 ‘J. Tey’ To love & be Wise xviii. 231 A little ghostly in the cold light of unshaded electrics, but reticent and well-bred.

1992 A. Thorpe Ulverton xi. 261 Lots of little fires flickering in the valley where it should have been electrics.

1890 Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 3 Mar. 1/7 Do the electrics travel too fast for the public safety?

1896 New Peterson Mag. Jan. 65/2 [They] would no more enter an ‘electric’ than they would give up wearing mitts all day.

1909 Westm. Gaz. 2 Sept. 9/1 (headline) Underground electrics... The achievements of the Underground Electric Railways of London for the half-year to June 30 seems to compare unfavourably with those exhibited in the first revenue account of..February last.

1913 Sat. Evening Post (Philadelphia) 22 Feb. 31/3 (advt.) There are Baker Electrics from 500-pound to 4-ton capacity. The largest organization in the world devoted exclusively to electric vehicle manufacture is back of every car.

1922 M. B. Houston Witch-man ix. 99 Mrs. Morse..climbed breathlessly back into the electric.

1987 M. McCarthy How I Grew i. 27 I was always glad to go home when my grandmother came to pick me up in her electric.

2002 Railway World Sept. 75/1 Manchester–Sheffield got its seven 90mph Co-Co electrics.

1892 Times 25 Aug. 8/3 Specialities were active on renewed clique support, Lead, Sugar, and Electrics being prominent features.

1931 Economist 10 Jan. 78/2 Rates, especially for electrics, potash and stores, were far below the level of the beginning of December.

2006 Express (Nexis) 3 Aug. 58 Analysts pointed to a good performance in electrics and fluids and a record order book.

1909 R. Kipling With Night Mail 150 You could not hoist the necessary N.U.C. lights on approaching a traffic-lane because your electrics had short-circuited.

1946 A. Phelps I couldn't care Less xiv. 118 Checking some of the other electrics and finding them working I realized..there must be a break in that circuit somewhere.

1970 Which? May 143/1 The electrics are described as ‘solid state’, which means they use printed circuits instead of wires.

2004 VW Motoring Jan. 56/4 The interior features lots of leather, and the electrics now generate 48 volts.

1841 Brit. Patent 8783 (1856) 1 (title) Electric clocks.

1844 H. M. Noad Lect. Electr. (ed. 2) viii. 382 A series of electric clocks may be connected, by means of the wires, with this clock, and..they will all go together.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. vi. [Hades] 107 They ought to have..an electric clock or a telephone in the coffin.

2002 J. Ray Step-ball-change 223 I had been watching him for hours in the little bit of light thrown out by our electric clock.

1894 Democratic Standard (Coshocton, Ohio) 6 Apr. 4/1 Electric cookers and lighting will do away with coal and gas, and the domestic millennium will begin.

1933 Archit. Rev. 74 p. xlii What is the outstanding fact about an ordinary electric cooker? Its capacity for being switched on and off.

1994 J. Galloway Foreign Parts ix. 129 She wasn't keen on electric cookers but this was holiday. You made do.

1872 Appleton's Jrnl. 25 May 585/2 The need of some more economical fuel than that now used in the electric furnace.

1885 Electrician 9 Oct. 411/2 A dynamo electric machine..will permit of the establishment of the electric furnace on a larger scale.

1995 Denver Post 7 May g1/3 Minimills that melt steel scrap in electric furnaces to produce new steel steadily have replaced the fully integrated mills.

1874 E. H. Knight Amer. Mech. Dict. I. 780/2 Electric heater, a device in which a fine platinum wire heated by a passing electric current is made to communicate sensible heat as a means of warming or burning, as the case may be.

1935 Discovery May 145/1 A small electric heater is placed under the table.

1997 P. Cornwell Unnatural Exposure v. 109 In a remote corner of the morgue was a portable electric heater where we defleshed and degreased bones.

1894 Delphos (Ohio) Daily Herald 13 Dec. 3/5 The primary and very appreciable attraction of the electric kettle is its absolute cleanliness.

1965 ‘M. Erskine’ Take Dark Journey vi. 68 The electric kettle was plugged in..but not turned on.

2007 Independent Save & Spend (Nexis) 17 Mar. 2 Only boil as much water as you need (but remember to cover the elements if you're using an electric kettle).

1846 W. E. Staite Brit. Patent 11,449 (1857) 5 I employ at each terminal place or station a voltaic battery and an electric lamp..and connect the voltaic battery of each station directly to the electric lamp of the other station.

1882 Electric Light 1 June 21/1 Incandescent lamps, in which a carbon thread is enclosed in a glass bulb..form the safest kind of electric lamp.

1920 ‘K. Mansfield’ Let. 22 Jan. (1993) III. 189 Electric lamp by the bed under a small gold shade.

1952 G. F. Hervey & J. Hems Freshwater Trop. Aquarium Fishes iii. 15 An ordinary electric lamp, ‘clear’ or ‘pearl’, may be used.

2003 J. Flanders Victorian House (2004) v. 167 In 1881 the Savoy Theatre premiered Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience using 824 Swan incandescent electric lamps.

1847 Sci. Amer. 25 Sept. 4/1 Electric Railway. Mr. Lilly and Dr. Colton, of Pittsburg, Pa., have invented a new method of railway propulsion... The machine is a small locomotive and is placed upon a circular railway, around which it is driven by electricity. The power is applied, not to the locomotive, but to the track.

1899 Whitaker's Almanack 618 The magnets at the U.S. Naval Observatory have been rendered useless by the electric railways passing near.

2000 C. Mulholland William Mulholland & Rise of Los Angeles v. 45 Eaton was also involved in transportation schemes, including the promotion of an electric railway system for the city, which was rapidly out-growing its horse-drawn car lines.

1921 Mansfield (Ohio) News 28 Aug. 15/3 We now have the electric toothbrush for home use... It contains all the features of the dentist's apparatus, but is designed for individual use.

2004 Focus Feb. 44/2 Electric toothbrushes use a principle called inductive charging... When the toothbrush is placed on the charging unit, current flows into the base.

1860 Orig. Secession Mag. 4 74 Swifter than the electric train Shall grace divine give life to all.

1939 ‘R. Crompton’ William & A.R.P. vii. 185 ‘Steal that electric train of his he's always swankin' about,’ suggested Ginger.

1992 N.Y. Times 8 Nov. v. 8/3 The new high-speed electric trains that will run through the Channel Tunnel to France.

1888 Times 10 Sept. 11/3 The first track on which electric trams were run in series.

1914 S. Graham With Poor Immigrants to Amer. xiii. 227 The whizz of the automobiles.., the paup-paup of electric-tram signals.

2007 Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Nexis) 29 May 6 The electric trams and trolleybuses that are in most towns of any size [in Switzerland].

1881 Times 31 May 10/6 The electric tramway which Dr. Werner Siemens has constructed in Berlin..is now regularly opened for passengers.

1925 H. C. Booth tr. F. Auerbach Mod. Magnetics (U.K. ed.) vii. 161 Galvanometers enclosed in iron shields which protect the instrument from magneto-inductive effects due to external disturbances such as electric tramways.

2005 Daily Post (N. Wales) (Nexis) 24 Feb. 8 An electric tramway operated between Llandudno and Colwyn Bay from 1907 until 1956, with the unusual private toll road feature on Penrhyn Bay sea front.

1887 Marion (Ohio) Daily Star 18 May James F. McLaughlin, a young electrician of Philadelphia, has invented an electric typewriter which is spoken of as a formidable rival to the telephone and telegraph.

1959 F. O'Connor Let. 3 Apr. in Habit of Being (1980) 326 I am congratulating you on the electric typewriter... I can see the value of it when you have a manuscript to type.

2007 Northern Echo (Nexis) 30 Jan. 10 The way he writes is prehistoric—first in longhand then on a decrepit electric typewriter. He says computers are beyond him.

1883 J. R. Finney U.S. Patent 270,186 1/1 I..have invented a new and useful Improvement in Electric Vehicles.

1924 A. J. Allmand & H. J. T. Ellingham Princ. Appl. Electrochem. (ed. 2) xiv. 242 The Exide-Ironclad battery made by the Chloride Company, and especially designed for use on electric vehicles.

1998 Town & Country Planning June 192/4 The development of renewably powered electric vehicles to reduce air pollution.

1868 Musical Times & Singing Class Circular 13 347/2 Bryceson, Brothers and Co., have the sole right of working this patent in Great Britain, either for new organs, or the application of the electric action to existing instruments.

1948 Penguin Music Mag. 7 25 Electric action..and similar delights enable modern organists to gambol through Bach fugues at a hair-raising speed.

2002 Cathedral Music Oct. 43/3 All new organs were provided with either tubular, electro-pneumatic or electric action.

1848 Lancet 23 Sept. 342/2 When their intense emanations flow in currents,..then, as the disturbing forces are severe, the loss of electric balance is severe also.

1860 Proc. Royal Soc. 1859–60 10 307 My modes of experimenting were..all based on Professor Wheatstone's invention of a beautiful method for comparing resistances, to which I have frequently referred as Professor Wheatstone's electric balance.

1887 Nature 29 Sept. 522/1 New electric balances. These balances are founded on the mutual forces, discovered by Ampère, between the fixed and movable portions of an electric circuit.

1931 Jrnl. Sci. Instruments 8 338 Figs. 3–5 show respectively the electric balance as used by Volta in determining the law of attraction in relation to distance, Oersted's compass, [etc.].

1961 Exper. Cell Res. 25 44 The wet and dry weights of the bones were determined with an electric balance.

2002 Jrnl. Herpetol. 36 662/2 We..weighed body mass..to the nearest 0.1 g with an electric balance.

1774 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 63 476 Those singular organs..consist like our electric batteries of many vessels..whose superficies taken together furnish a considerable area.

1800 Philos. Mag. 7 289 An apparatus having a resemblance in its effects to the Leyden flask, or, rather, to an electric battery weakly charged acting incessantly.

1871 J. Lassell & C. Lassell tr. H. Schellen Spectrum Anal. ix. 67 An electric battery of 50 Bunsen's or Grove's large elements.

1922 T. M. Lowry Inorg. Chem. xliv. 880 Amalgamated zinc is used in electric batteries, as it is less readily attacked, when the circuit is open, than commercial zinc.

1946 Whittaker's Electr. Engin. Pocket-bk. (ed. 7) 859 (heading) Commercial electric battery vehicles.

2003 New Yorker 11 Aug. 38/3 Toyota and Honda..have begun commercially producing hybrid cars, which are equipped with..an electric battery that recaptures energy ordinarily lost to friction.

1839 Bradford Observer 28 Nov. Lecture 1.—Electricity… Pith Balls and Dancing Figures. Electric Bells.

1844 E. A. Poe in U.S. Mag. & Democratic Rev. Nov. 490/2 At all risks, let there be a few vivid sentences imprimis, by way of the electric bell to the telegraph.

1871 Proc. Royal Soc. 1870–71 19 256 For electric bells, and all telegraphic testing and signalling on shore, the new form of battery will probably be found easier of management.

1974 E. Bowen Henry & Other Heroes iv. 79 Tanner turned out to be a boarding school kept open all year, complete with..electric bells that rang every hour to make you start or stop doing whatever the schedule said.

2010 D. Sang Cambr. IGCSE Physics Coursebk. iv. 218/2 An electric bell is a surprisingly clever device. It works using direct current from a battery, but it makes a hammer move repeatedly back and forth to strike the gong.

1886 Weekly Detroit Free Press 20 Mar. 7/1 Some clever inventor ought to fix up an electric bicycle which would stand more chance of success than the steam invention.

1892 Electr. Engineer 484/2 Another inventor, Mr. Graffiny.., has busied himself with the same fascinating problem, and has produced, so it is said, an electric bicycle that can do the trip from Land's End to John O'Groats House without stopping to have its batteries refilled.

1947 Pop. Mech. Feb. 152/2 Coasting down one hill on an ‘electric’ bicycle stores up power for climbing up the next. Power is stored in a hub dynamo.

2018 Times (Nexis) 26 June t2/4 Celebs..rode them first. Now middle-aged men are buying electric bicycles.

1929 Advertiser (Adelaide) 23 Dec. 3/6 (advt.) Motor Cycles... Wanted. Good..OHV Electric Bike, cheap.

1943 Pop. Sci. Aug. 130/1 An electric bike may be made from a bicycle by installing two storage batteries to power an old 12-volt Dodge starter-generator.

2006 Independent 14 June (Extra section) 8 Now fast and sleek, electric bikes have overtaken their nerdy image.

1893 Trenton (New Jersey) Times 10 Oct. 1/1 Large electric blankets $3.25.

1930 Punch 16 Apr. 425/1 Had a rotten night. My electric blanket fused and I had to get up to mend it.

1999 C. Creedon Passion Play iv. 18 She's probably tucked up in her bed; electric blanket, central heating, weather-glaze, the lot.

1877 Evening Gaz. (Port Jervis, N.Y.) 22 Feb. 2/2 The virtues of the combination of the caloric rays of the sun and the electric blue lights are..innumerable.

1882 Atlanta (Georgia) Constit. 22 Aug. 3/2 Electric blue, Donane and telegram blue are the new names given the gray cadet-blue that is so much worn this season.

1955 Times 9 July 3/3 A huge black fish with a brilliant electric blue tail.

1977 G. Durrell Golden Bats & Pink Pigeons v. 123 The predominant coral was Stag's horn,..decked out in white and electric blue.

2001 J. Crusie Fast Women (2002) iv. 68 Nell turned back to see him looking at her dress, an electric blue bandage that wrapped around her like a second skin.

1873 Times 24 Feb. 4/5 Train motion, on which the hydraulic and electric brakes depend.

1975 Science 26 Sept. 1111/3 Speed is variable..and there is an automatic timer and an electric brake.

2006 Jrnl. Power Sources 157 858/1 The time taken for the traction system to transition from power to electric brake would greatly impact the operator's response time.

1908 Stand. Handbk. Electr. Engin. 986 An efficiency of 60 per cent could be obtained during retardation by electric braking.

2006 Jrnl. Power Sources 157 858/1 Almost all modern passenger trains..are equipped with electric braking.

1857 Weekly Racine (Wisconsin) Advocate 29 Apr. 2/6 The Submarine Telegraph wire between England and America. This electric bridge for the travel of thought across the Atlantic..will span a distance..of sixteen hundred and fifty miles.

1867 M. L. Booth Hist. City of N.Y. 858 The successful laying of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable... The continents linked together by an electric bridge.

1876 F. Guthrie Magn. & Electr. ii. v. 228 Making the use of the electric bridge described in Art. 250..the two resistances [are] balanced.

1911 Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 50 460 Since 1899, when the electric bridge was first put into practical use, various improvements have been made.

1995 E. A. Davis Sci. in Making I. v. 215 It is said that the lecture for that evening was to have been given by Sir Charles Wheatstone (whose name has been immortalized in the Wheatstone electric bridge).

1856 National Rev. July 88 The ray of the electric bulb, so sharply defined that all beyond its pencil falls into depth of darkness.

1895 Harper's Mag. Nov. 813/2 He found himself inside the immense amphitheatre, under the skelton ribs of its roof picked out with long lines of tiny electric bulbs.

1938 D. Baker Young Man with Horn ii. ii. 104 A naked electric bulb hung from a tannish braided cord in the exact centre of the room.

1994 J. Galloway Foreign Parts vii. 103 His mother stood behind him, her sari glinting with leftover radiance from the electric bulbs.

1851 Sci. Amer. 20 Dec. 106/1 M. Aristide Dumont..proposes to suspend the electric cable to floating buoys instead of laying it upon the bed of the sea.

1940 W. J. Eckert Punched Card Methods Sci. Computation ii. 17 A motor-driven duplicating key punch attached by an electric cable to the tabulator.

2003 Evening Times (Glasgow) (Nexis) 31 Mar. 2 He had been working in the garden..using a drill to erect fence posting when he hit an underground electric cable.

1803 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 93 18 The following experiments, on some crystals of electric calamine from Regbania in Hungary, can leave no doubt of its being a combination of calx of zinc with quartz.

1902 W. R. Ingalls Production & Prop. Zinc 170 English mineralogists..generally employ calamine to designate the anyhydrous carbonate, referring to the hydrous silicate as electric calamine.

1946 J. R. Partington Gen. & Inorg. Chem. xv. 383 The hydrated silicate..is electric calamine or hemimorphite.

1877 Jrnl. Franklin Inst. 104 295 Jablochkoff's electric candles burn for two or three hours without interruption.

1941 ‘N. Blake’ Case of Abominable Snowman iv. 40 The table was lit by electric candles in heavy iron sconces, and in the huge fireplace several trees seemed to be burning.

1953 Music Educators Jrnl. 40 71/1 Since there might be an objection to the use of real candles.., attention is called to the fact that there are now on the market electric candles and torches (run by batteries).

2004 B. Bunch & A. Hellemans Hist. Sci. & Technol. 405/2 The electric candle will burn for two hours with no mechanical adjustment because its two carbon rods are separated by porcelain clay that vaporizes as the arc burns.

1857 C. Mackay Under Green Leaves 39 Guardian angels fly On wings of sudden thought, Or come, life messengers In God's electric car, Whose wheels are impulses, To lead us.

1881 St. Louis (Missouri) Globe-Democrat 23 May 4/2 The speed can be easily regulated and the stoppage of the electric car is immediate.

1913 Sat. Evening Post (Philadelphia) 22 Feb. 68/1 (advt.) The fact that our city is so rough on cars has handicapped the Electric cars more than the hills, for we can go up any hills the gas car can, but, oh, those cobbles!

1917 ‘O. Douglas’ Setons xi. 167 Elizabeth..announced at the breakfast-table her intention of personally conducting Mr. Townshend through Glasgow on the top of an electric car.

1993 J. Kay Found. Corporate Success iii. vii. 102 Maybe electric cars would succeed if a major automobile producer devoted enough resources to the venture.

1865 T. Norris Amer. Angler's Bk. Index 694/2 Electric Catfish.

1915 Copeia No. 25 58 While we were standing on a rock, a boy had thrown out with a painful yell, a small specimen of an electric catfish.

1958 R. Garnett tr. B. Heuvelmans On Track of Unknown Animals xx. 471 In Africa none of the known catfishes is very large: the electric catfish is the biggest at 5 feet long.

1997 G. S. Helfman et al. Diversity of Fishes vi. 76/2 The two electric organs of the electric catfishes (Malapteruridae) are located on either side of the body, and each contains several million electrocytes. These organs generate a current of about 300 volts.

2015 Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois) (Nexis) 15 Feb. d1 Their collection includes an electric catfish, capable of generating voltage three times greater than an electrical outlet.

1880 Davenport (Iowa) Daily Gaz. 30 Aug. 4/6 His [sc. Dr. O. C. Sharp's] electric chair (his own invention) so perfected that he is enabled to reach with the electric currents every part of the body.

1883 Athens (Ohio) Messenger 14 June 3/1 The new patent electric chair for the execution of criminals is..altogether too humane.

1889 Peel City Guardian 8 June 6/2 The preparations, which are to consist of taking a seat in an electric chair.

1948 Chicago Daily News 18 Sept. 3/6 A 24-year-old former convict..must die in the electric chair.

1999 Sunday Sport 3 Oct. 7/1 Now anybody on the Internet can see the results of ‘Old Sparky’—the state's electric chair.

1856 G. F. Barstow tr. É. With Railroad Accidents xxiii. 118 The electric chimes placed on the guard-houses, to signalize the approach of trains which have not been announced.

1934 Pop. Sci. Monthly May 65 (title) How to make a set of musical electric chimes to replace your noisy old doorbell.

2002 C. Beach Class, Lang. & Amer. Film Comedy v. 138 Everything about the larger trailer indicates the kind of bourgeois luxury and prestige Tacy dreams of having: electric chimes ring as they open the door, [etc.].

1858 Half-yearly Abstr. Med. Sci. 26 248 There may be some analogy, so far as causes are concerned, between electric chorea and raphania.

1887 H. C. Wood Dis. & their Diagnosis ii. 159 Electric chorea... In this disorder the whole body, or any portion of it, is the seat of more or less rapidly repeated, violent muscular spasms, resembling those produced by a sudden severe electric shock... Electric chorea may be a symptom of chronic alcoholism.

1957 Amer. Jrnl. Surg. 93 939 The irregular movement is more rapid and finer in range and can be more accurately compared to the movements of electric chorea.

1998 Electroencephalogr. & Clin. Neurophysiol. 107 181/1 He [sc. Dubini] called it ‘electric chorea’ and the disorder he described was probably related to an infection.

1748 W. Watson in Philos. Trans. 1747 (Royal Soc.) 44 718 Several Experiments shew, that the electrical Force always describes a Circuit.]

1764 W. Watson in Philos. Trans. 1763 (Royal Soc.) 53 16 It is now seventeen years since, that I communicated it to you..that by means of the electric circuit I could cause the electricity to pervade any muscle.

1767 J. Priestley Hist. & Present State Electr. viii. 651 The conductors which form an electric circuit.

1879 G. B. Prescott Speaking Telephone (new ed.) 5 The telephone is a device for transmitting..over an electric circuit..various kinds of sound.

1910 J. Erskine-Murray Wireless Telephones vii. 51 An electric circuit will respond most readily to impulses which come timed to its own natural rate of vibration.

1992 Independent 31 Oct. 4/1 People with meters are given a ‘smart key’, a two-inch piece of plastic containing an electric circuit which can be charged with units of credit.

1798 C. H. Wilkinson Ess. Leyden Phial 50 If b c is the charged surface, and the electric column acting all around,..the loss sustained by this will be the quantity of electric fluid equivalent to the resistance of the column a b.

1810 J. A. De Luc in Jrnl. Nat. Philos. May 71 I had made no secret of my discoveries. I had communicated the electric column and its construction to many experienced philosophers, and in particular, being in London in July 1808, I showed it to Mr. Davy.

a1867 M. Faraday in P. Day Philosopher's Tree (1999) ii. 5 The first portion I obtained was in the thinnest pieces possible; observe it in a flattened state. It was, as they informed me, thin enough for the Electric Snake, or as I before called it, de Luc's Electric column.

1971 Notes & Rec. Royal Soc. 26 29 Up to the very last months of his life, De Luc continued his electromechanical researches. His chief discovery had been his ‘dry pile’ or ‘electric column’.

1820 tr. H. C. Oersted in Ann. Philos. 16 274 The opposite ends of the galvanic battery were joined by a metallic wire... To the effect which takes place in this conductor and in the surrounding space, we shall give the name of the conflict of electricity.]

1820 tr. H. C. Oersted in Ann. Philos. 16 276 The electric conflict acts only on the magnetic particles of matter.

1823 J. Badcock Domest. Amusem. 126 A zinc plate..was immersed in the liquid, and a wire united the extremities of the pile: the effect produced hereby, was termed the electric conflict.

1969 Jrnl. Hist. Ideas 30 341 When Oersted reported his discovery of electromagnetism in 1819, he said that the electric ‘conflict’ (the word may come from Kant..) which constitutes the electric current..leaves the conducting wire and goes through space to deflect the magnetic needle.

1939 Lancet 9 Dec. 1232/1 The technique of electric-convulsion therapy with Bini's apparatus guarantees that the current passes through the head only.

1963 J. H. Burn Drugs, Med. & Man (ed. 2) xi. 122 Treatment by taking a certain number of tablets each day is much pleasanter than electric convulsion therapy, but electric convulsion therapy is still retained for those patients in whom the drugs are ineffective.

1995 Guardian (Nexis) 10 June 30 She also tried to publish her verses born out of electric convulsion therapy and a handful of sedatives.

1942 Arch. Neurol. Psychiatry 47 928 Electroencephalographic and clinical studies following metrazol and electric convulsive therapy.

1953 L. E. Hinsie & J. Shatzky Psychiatric Dict. (ed. 2) 767/1 Electric convulsive therapy, or E.C.T., is indicated in mania, depressions, and certain cases of schizophrenia.

2002 R. C. Friedman & J. I. Downey Sexual Orientation & Psychoanal. xvi. 291 The former [group of psychiatrists] tended to be institutionally based and to specialize in the treatment of the severe psychoses with electric convulsive therapy.

1760 Philos. Trans. 1759 (Royal Soc.) 51 312 An electric current, setting in from the glass of the electrifying machine, and passing along the tube through the quicksilver and vacuum, and so to the earth.

1837 D. Brewster Treat. Magnetism 307 The influence of electric currents.

1863 J. Tyndall Heat i. 19 The existence and direction of an electric current are shown by its action upon a freely suspended magnetic needle.

1924 A. J. Allmand & H. J. T. Ellingham Princ. Appl. Electrochem. (ed. 2) i. 6 The energy expended in one second by an unvarying electric current of one ampere flowing under an electric pressure of one volt.

1992 Men's Health Nov. 34/2 If your problem persists, your dermatologist may recommend iontophoresis—a technique in which a weak electric current is applied to the sweat glands.

1860 W. Thomson in Proc. Royal Soc. 10 333 Electric density.—This term was introduced by Coulomb to designate the quantity of electricity per unit of area in any part of the surface of a conductor.

1934 Proc. Royal Soc. A. 146 420 According to a theory proposed by Dirac one has to picture the vacuum as filled with an infinite number of electrons of negative kinetic energy, the electric density of which is, however, unobservable.

2007 Jrnl. Materials Processing 184 34/1 The sparking is uniformly distributed among the powder particles, hence electric density of the spark decreases.

1922 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 8 308 The behavior of these ions in an electric field is somewhat like..that of electric dipoles.

1978 H. M. Rosenberg Solid State (ed. 2) i. 16 Because the electron cloud is always vibrating with respect to its nucleus, an exact cancellation does not occur. This means that the atom or molecule will have an electric dipole moment.

1995 D. M. P. Mingos Essent. Inorg. Chem. 1 (1997) 24 A molecule with a permanent electric dipole is called a polar molecule.

1774 W. Henley Acct. New Exper. Electr. v. 34 I fixed between two balls, introduced into the circuit of an electric discharge, a piece of smooth wainscot.

1866 H. Watts Dict. Chem. IV. 301 By means of platinum wires,..electric discharges are passed through the oxygen, whereby it becomes ozonified.

1935 Economist 23 Mar. 690/2 The electric lighting of streets has made a very big step forward by the use of the electric discharge lamp.

1951 H. Israël in T. F. Malone Compend. Meteorol. 150 The electromagnetic pulses..originating from electric discharges in the atmosphere are investigated.

1997 R. Porter Greatest Benefit to Mankind viii. 173 The electric discharge of the torpedo fish.

1864 J. C. Maxwell in Proc. Royal Soc. 1863–4 13 532 Thus the action of electromotive force on a dielectric produces an electric displacement within it, and in this way stores up energy.

1935 C. J. Smith Intermediate Physics (ed. 2) v. xxxvii. 623 The quantity E = 4πP is termed electric displacement or electric induction in the medium.

1969 L. Young Syst. Units Electr. & Magn. iv. 42 The flux ‘lines’ spread out over space to produce a certain electric flux density or electric displacement.

2003 Proc. Royal Soc. A. 459 1262 The polarization of the two plane waves that can propagate in an isotropic medium are fully described by their electric displacement vectors.

1868 Q. Jrnl. Sci. 5 117 Electric discharge in vacuo, such as..an electric egg.

1995 G. V. Sutton Sci. for Polite Society viii. 319 The investigation of the electric egg, which came in response to the discovery of the Leyden jar, uncovered an important new chain of phenomena.

2001 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 18 Oct. 56/1 I was hidden in a corner, reading a nineteenth-century book on electrostatics—reading, for some reason, about ‘electric eggs’—when a shadow fell across the page.

1891 Science 10 July 24/1 In connection with resonators he exhibited what he [sc. Oliver Lodge] called a graduated electric eye, or an electric harp,..in which strips of tinfoil of different lengths are attached to a glass plate, and have spark gaps at each end which separate them from other pieces of foil. One or other of the strips would respond according to the frequency of the electro-magnetic radiation falling upon it.

1930 Electronics Aug. 216/2 ‘Electric Eye’ for Glass Industry..a photo-electric cell for determining weak spots in glass construction.

1937 Daily Express 3 Mar. 5/2 Take this ‘electric eye’, for example. We're installing it in the hotel driveway to warn people in the street whenever a car's coming out.

1966 Punch 23 Nov. 784/1 The period is obviously some time in the future..: electric eyes open the average door.

2001 S. Hong Wireless i. 8 According to William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Hertz's resonator was an ‘electric eye’; according to Lodge, human eyes were quite similar to the coherer.

1868 Sci. Amer. 27 June 402/2 Electric fan for lamps.

1905 A. Bennett Sacred & Profane Love ii. iv. 168 The electric fans revolved ceaselessly.

2002 A. Proulx That Old Ace in Hole (2003) iii. 28 There was no air conditioner, but an electric fan took up most of the top of the painted chest.

1882 Cambr. (Ohio) Jeffersonian 15 June 1/8 (heading) Electric fence... A novelty in the utilization of wire fences consists in insulating one of the continuous wires and connecting its ends with the opposite poles of the battery.

1952 M. McCarthy Groves of Academe (1953) vi. 98 Her personality was posted with all sorts of No Trespassing signs and criss-crossed with electric fences.

2006 Times (Nexis) 21 Oct. 46 Electric fences and tank traps line the road on the South Korean side of the border.

1891 Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago) 1 Nov. 31/1 Protection from dogs..can be assured by the electric fencing indispensable to profitable fruit growing and gardening.

1942 Farming Handbk. 41 Considerable success has been reported from several quarters with electric fencing.

2006 M. Pollan Omnivore's Dilemma xi. 216 Portable electric fencing so lightweight I could carry and lay out the entire thing by myself.

1879 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 170 177 The state of the electric field in the neighbourhood of the conductor would then be different to that in any other part of the [vacuum] tube.

1897 London, Edinb., & Dublin Philos. Mag. 5th Ser. 44 311 If these corpuscles are..projected from the cathode by the electric field, they would behave exactly like cathode rays.

1970 New Scientist 15 Oct. (Suppl.) 16/1 The necessary impurities are accelerated by an electric field to an energy sufficient to embed them into the silicon to the depth required.

2002 J. Colls Air Pollution (ed. 2) iv. 198 The particles are collected continuously on a filter mounted on the tip of a glass element that oscillates in an applied electric field.

?1787 W. F. Mavor New Dict. Nat. Hist. I Electric Fish, see Torpedo.

1860 C. Darwin Let. 16 Nov. in Corr. (1993) VIII. 474 He says owing to passage in my Book on Electric fishes he has been dissecting Rays, & believes he finds in same fish the homologues of both the anterior & posterior proper electric organs of fish.

1974 J. B. Finean et al. Membranes & Cellular Functions iii. 55 Several compounds reversibly antagonize the effects of acetylcholine on voluntary muscle and on the electrogenic tissue of electric fishes.

2002 G. M. Eberhart Mysterious Creatures II. 647/1 Ghost knifefish, Magosternarchus duccis. An electric fish, discovered in the Amazon Basin by John Lundberg and described in 1996, that only eats the tails of other electric fish.

1745 Gentleman's Mag. Apr. 193/1 The approach of a tube of electrified glass communicates..an electric force.

1830 J. F. W. Herschel Prelim. Disc. Study Nat. Philos. 356 The galvanometer..an instrument whose range of utility lies among electric forces which we have no other means of rendering sensible.

1843 London, Edinb., & Dublin Philos. Mag. 22 302 There is no state of static electric force corresponding to the terms of simulated or disguised or latent electricity away from the ordinary principles of inductive action.

1980 D. Wilkinson in B. Dixon From Creation to Chaos (1993) 320 At a separation of 1 fm (or 10⁻¹³ cm)..the strong force is about 100 times stronger than the electric force.

1879 J. Tyndall Fragm. Sci. (ed. 6) II. xvi. 435 By it, in short, the electric generator is so far simplified, and reduced in cost, as to [etc.].

1889 G. M. Hopkins Exper. Sci. (1893) xviii. 393 For the purpose of studying the generation and behavior of dynamic electricity, the elements referred to may be formed into an electric generator or battery.

1938 J.-B. O. Sneeden Introd. Internal Combustion Engin. (new ed.) xiii. 258 The oil engines drive electric generators, and these supply the current necessary to feed the electric motors that operate the driving axles.

1998 New Yorker 20 July 33/1 His rivet guns and leather trimmers are powered by compressed air and electric generators.

1933 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 22 May 8/5 Alvino Rey..has added an electric guitar to his $2,000 collection of instruments.

1959 H. Hobson Mission House Murder ii. 13 A nice, clean, unusual noise from vibraharp, electric guitar, a piano and a..bass-viol.

1999 S. Perera Haven't stopped dancing Yet ix. 111 A young boy in a Stetson was playing electric guitar, his small foot jammed on a wah-wah pedal, a discordant drone resonating from the amplifier.

1937 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 12 Jan. 20/2 Ken. Downs, electric steel guitarist.]

1938 Lima (Ohio) News 21 Aug. 22/5 Featured entertainers include..Alvina [sic] Rey, electric guitarist.

1996 W. Carter in P. Trynka Rock Hardware 44/2 George Harrison, the group's lead electric guitarist, played acoustic rhythm on a Gibson J-160E.

1920 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 5 June 14/5 The hounds are..being trained to chase an electric hare. They need little tuition.

1941 Hutchinson's Pict. Hist. War 19 Mar.–13 May 219 An ingenious device now in operation for the training of air gunners is an ‘electric hare’ plane. Mounted on a truck, it is run at high speed round the track while the gunner works from a mobile turret.

1999 C. Brookmyre One Fine Day in Middle of Night (2000) 280 So-called friends who're off like an electric hare if your star falls and your money runs oot.

1852 Sci. Amer. 7 Sept. 404/3 (heading) A galvanic or Electric harpoon for paralizing whales.

1889 Cent. Dict. 2727/1 Electric harpoon, a bomb-lance in which the charge is fired by means of an electric fuse, the connection being made by means of a wire in the harpoon-line.

1929 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 2 May 22/5 Norwegian whalers with a view to revolutionizing the trade would shoot electric harpoons next year into the harvest the sea has in store for them.

2001 Sunday Tel. (Sydney) (Nexis) 5 Aug. 95 Often, electric harpoons are used, which prolong suffering and cause burns to the porpoises' skin.

1921 G. B. Shaw Back to Methuselah iv. i. 169 The Elderly Gentleman:..When I tried to step off the pier on to the road, I received a shock, followed by an attack of pins and needles which ceased only when I stepped back on to the stones. Zoo: Yes: there is an electric hedge there. It is a very old and very crude method of keeping animals from straying...The Elderly Gentleman: Kipling..is said to have invented the electric hedge.

1838 M. Faraday in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 128 274 I arranged two magneto-electric helices with iron cores end to end, but with an interval of an inch and three quarters between them, in which interval was placed the end or pole of a bar magnet.]

1851 M. Faraday in Abstr. Papers Royal Soc. 5 568 Magnets consisting only of electric helices act with less power than when armed with iron.

1890 U. S. Patent 436,512 2 The ends of the electric helices..are connected to an electric line-wire through which electric impulses are passed.

1911 tr. J. Verne Sphinx of Ice xiv, in C. F. Horne Wks. Jules Verne XIV. 384 It would suffice that a block of iron should be subjected to their action for it to be changed into a magnet of power proportioned to the intensity of the current, to the number of turns of the electric helix, and to the square root of the diameter of the block of magnetized iron.

1880 Science 21 Aug. 96/1 This tablet is connected with the electric indicator, which is fixed at the top of a vertical tube above the boiler.

1930 J. Dos Passos 42nd Parallel iii. 299 A man named Law had rigged up an electric indicator (Callahan's invention) that indicated the price of gold in brokers' offices.

1952 B. N. Menshutkin Russia's Lomonosov iv. 86 When the professor had looked at the electric indicator he judged that the thunder was still far off.

1831 M. Faraday Let. 29 Nov. in Corr. (1991) I. 590 These two kinds of induction I have distinguished by the terms Volta-electric and Magneto-electric induction.]

1838 M. Faraday in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 128 3 Something equivalent to a specific electric induction for different bodies.

1873 J. C. Maxwell Treat. Electr. & Magnetism I. i. ii. 85 We have used the phrase Lines of Force because it has been used by Faraday and others. In strictness, however, these lines should be called Lines of Electric Induction.

1885 O. Heaviside in Electrician 4 Sept. 311/2 We pass to electric displacement, the analogue of magnetic induction (noting by the way that it had better not be called the electric induction..but be called the displacement).

1935 C. J. Smith Intermediate Physics (ed. 2) v. xxxvii. 628 It is also possible to draw other continuous curves in a dielectric—if these are such that the tangent at any point indicates the direction of the electric induction.

1890 Daily Independent (Monroe, Wisconsin) 8 Nov. 3/4 Before the electric irons were installed in the factory ten operatives were needed to do the work, which now rarely requires more than six.

1941 P. Barber New Scene Technician's Handbk. viii, in J. Gassner Producing Play 667 Provide electric outlets for electric irons, place for ironing boards.

2002 J. Heskett Toothpicks & Logos iv. 77 The electric iron, for which the basic sole-plate format is so appropriate for its task that minor variations of the existing form are the only design options.

1753 Philos. Trans. 1751–2 (Royal Soc.) 47 565 (title) A letter of Benjamin Franklin, Esq; to Mr. Peter Collinson, F.R.S. concerning an electrical Kite.]

1885 Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 22 161 [At a meeting of the Society held in 1788] Franklin presented..an engraving of the Duke of Chaulnes' improvement of Franklin's Electric Kite.

1941 C. A. Woodward Ploughs & Politicks xiv. 225 When Benjamin Franklin flew his electric kite on a pasture lot in Philadelphia, he little thought that future generations would associate his name with this simple experiment.

1988 Osiris 4 122 They attended the weekly lectures at which experiments were performed... Even air balloons and electric kites were flown.

1884 Daily News 3 Sept. 3/1 The bower is illuminated by two Edison incandescent electric light bulbs.

1922 T. M. Lowry Inorg. Chem. xxix. 497 Lead-soda glass..is employed on a large scale for making electric light bulbs.

1988 G. Jones Coll. Poems (1996) v. 111 A small naked electric light bulb, 25w., hangs down on a thread-like wire, furry with dust, from one of the rafters.

2001 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 1 Nov. 46/4 Uncle Dave ran a factory making tungsten filaments for electric light bulbs.

1850 Times 14 Oct. 4/5 The submarine telegraph between England and France... The electric line may be completed in May.

1881 Sci. Amer. 28 May 336 It has..been determined on the Berlin electric line to conduct the current by means of a copper wire..attached to pillars erected alongside the line.

1882 Times 14 Apr. 9/3 The Bill makes it a felony..to maliciously cut or injure any electric line or work with intent to cut off any supply of electricity.

1923 National Geographic Mag. Apr. 358/1 The electric lines of the country, urban and interurban, carry some ten billion passengers annually.

2004 Horse Illustr. Apr. 66 Dig trenches for underground water or electric lines.

1847 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 137 239 The nervous action by which the discharge is determined under the influence of the will, resides in the fourth, or electric lobe of the brain [of electric fishes].

1935 Discovery Nov. 327/2 A special brain-centre [in the Electric torpedo fish] known as the electric lobe. The organ as a whole resembles a beehive, for the electrogenic units or elements are grouped in batteries of prismatic form.

2004 Neuron 42 237/2 CSP antisense RNA inhibited the expression of N-type Ca²⁺ channels when coinjected with Torpedo electric lobe RNA into Xenopus oocytes.

1880 Wellsboro (Tioga County, Pa.) Agitator 6 Apr. 1/7 An electric locomotive has been manufactured and successfully operated on the street railways of Berlin.

1943 Triumphs of Engin. 252/2 Ships entering and passing through the locks are towed by means of small but powerful electric locomotives.

2000 P. W. B. Semmens & A. J. Goldfinch How Steam Locomotives really Work vi. 242 On modern diesel and electric locomotives the ‘lively’ performance of helical springs is moderated..using separate hydraulic dampers.

1886 Science 2 July 256/2 This electric log, it seems, was the joint invention of Capts. Fleuriais and Bretel, and was so arranged, that, when connected with the cable, it formed part of an electric circuit.

1943 T. B. Losey U.S. Patent 2,317,544 1/2 An example of electric logging apparatus in which electric logs are made by means of a single conductor cable with a single electrode in the well is found in patent No. 2,132,807.

1996 G. Danton Theory & Pract. Seamanship (ed. 11) xvii. 451 The most modern towing log is the Walker's ‘Commodore’ (see Plate 7), which was introduced in 1956 to replace the Walker's ‘Trident’ electric log.

2006 Oil & Gas Jrnl. (Nexis) 17 Apr. 35 Pemex announced that electric logs at a deepwater wildcat in the southernmost gulf indicated a possible supergiant oil accumulation.

1745 Gentleman's Mag. Apr. 194/2 The grand chancellor of Poland..had an electric machine brought to him, made by his order, from Leipsic.

1760 J. Wesley Desideratum: Electr. Made Plain 35 That the Electric Machine may as properly be term'd a Fire-Pump, as Mr. Boyle's Machine, an Air Pump?

1857 T. Hughes Tom Brown's School Days ii. iii. 276 He..had made unto himself an electric machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure and glory to administer small shocks to any small boys who were rash enough to venture into his study.

1908 Westm. Gaz. 30 Mar. 5/2 For starting purposes supplementary power is obtained by means of an electric machine, best described as a dynamotor.

1939 Taranaki Herald (New Plymouth, N.Z.) 23 Aug. 3 An electric machine has a tremendous advantage over the old manual totalisator.

1996 Pract. Gardening June 92/2 He warns that you should never fiddle with an electric machine that's plugged in.

1900 Trenton (New Jersey) Times 26 Feb. 4/5 Mixed by skilled workmen with the aid of up-to-date electric mixers and baked in steam heated ovens.

1995 R. Gray & R. Rogers River Cafe Cook Bk. (1996) ix. 285 Beat the egg whites in an electric mixer until they form soft white peaks.

1893 Proc. Royal Soc. 54 454 The symmetry of the electric charges makes null the aggregate electric moment.

1935 C. J. Smith Intermediate Physics (ed. 2) v. xxxvii. 622 In an unpolarized medium, if we assume a chaotic arrangement of atoms, the resultant electric moment per unit volume must be zero.

2002 G. A. Gallup Valence Bond Methods viii.111 When the bond is between unlike atoms, it is to be expected that ionic structures in the wave function will also contribute to various electric moments, the dipole moment being the simplest.

1850 Sci. Amer. 16 Feb. 173/2 In reference to Electric Motors he says: [etc.].

1883 Electric Light 1 Mar. 173/1 The small electric motors..have been ingeniously applied, under a patent recently taken out, to the working of fans for drawing-room use.

1936 Discovery Aug. 238/1 Each of the shutters for the nine lenses is actuated by an individual electric motor.

2003 Tractor & Machinery Oct. (Farm & Hort. Equipm. Suppl.) 4/1 The machine was originally electrically driven, and the five sets of mounting-bolt holes meant that the machine has outlived at least five electric motors!

1935 Evening Post (Wellington, N.Z.) 13 July 8/7 If the latest type electric multiple unit train became available I would be a regular customer.

1935 Evening Post (Wellington, N.Z.) 7 Sept. 10/1 The introduction of electric multiple units.

1970 Jrnl. Transport Econ. & Policy 4 163 (table) ‘Traction hours in traffic’ relates to locomotives only (i.e. excluding diesel and electric multiple units).

2012 Steam Days May 311/3 The old and new order of electric-multiple-units are seen at Bognor Regis early in January 1970.

1874 J. R. Lowell in Atlantic Monthly May 586 The electric nerve, whose instantaneous thrill Makes next-door gossips of the antipodes.]

1880 Science 4 Sept. 113/2 Stimulation of the electric nerve [in electric fishes] produces discharge, as that of the motor nerve causes muscular shock [in man].

1935 Discovery Nov. 329/2 (caption) Cross section of Malopterurus electricus. Nfe, electric nerve; oe, electric organ.

1999 Neuroscience 91 1056/2 Electric nerves were exposed between the skull and gill arches.

1927 A. Huxley Let. 17 May (1969) 286 Everything happening to the strains of the steam organs and electric pianos of the inevitable Flemish kermesse.

1993 Rolling Stone 8 July 112/3 A series of poetic hymns to angels and nature deities set to a dancing melody on an electric piano.

1856 Proc. Royal Soc. 8 300 This consists in applying a galvanic battery to give..a definite variation of electric potential determined by theory.

1871 English Mechanic 12 May 193/1 With electric potentials of less amount than sufficient to decompose water, they can be charged and discharged like condensers.

1933 A. W. Barton Text Bk. Heat xiii. 301 We can only measure difference in entropy, but, as with other quantities, such as height and electric potential, we choose an arbitrary zero for convenience.

1996 Sciences Sept. 23/1 The ion accelerator, a device that strips electrons from atoms and accelerates the resultant positively charged ions by applying an electric potential, or voltage, to the particles.

1737 Weekly Ess. 12 Nov. in Ess. Var. Subj. (1738) 31 He also observ'd, that the electric power of the ball was transmitted by means of a piece of thread at the distance of one ell.

1745 Philos. Trans. 1744–5 (Royal Soc.) 43 419 Such an electric Power will be communicated to the Iron, that, upon touching the other End of it with one's Finger, not only Sparks of Fire..but even Blood will be drawn from the Finger.

1803 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 9 286 The electric power has efficacy sufficient to cure diseases.

1922 Encycl. Brit. XXX. 958/1 The latest statistics available for Canada..show 795 central electric power stations.

1978 W. Palz Solar Electr. iii. 179 The direct conversion of sunlight into electric power is achieved by means of solar batteries.

2003 Village Voice (N.Y.) 20 Aug. 26/4 The..crisis of our creaky electric power system is..a pitched battle between public and private interests.

1922 Proc. Sect. Sci. K. Akad. Wetensch. Amsterdam 23 939 Assuming the molecules to act on each other as electric quadrupoles with constant quadrupole moment..Burgers has calculated the quadrupole moment of the hydrogen molecule.

1978 P. W. Atkins Physical Chem. xix. 634 This accounts for the electric quadrupole splitting of the Mössbauer spectrum in some compounds.

2004 J. H. Gross Mass Spectrometry iv. 151 This property led to the widespread application of electric quadrupoles, hexapoles, and octupoles as ion guides.

1894 Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Evening Gaz. 5 Oct. 8/2 The electric range..makes it possible so to regulate the heat that meats or pastry may be cooked precisely to the desired color and flavor, without burning.

1922 Encycl. Brit. XXX. 957/2 Another activity curtailed by the war was the organized sale of electric ranges.

1991 Consumers Digest Dec. 98/1 If..you're looking for an electric range, you're no longer limited to the traditional coil surface heating elements.

1870 Times 2 Feb. 12/2 Cheap Jack sells his matchless clasp-knives and electric razor-straps to gaping bumpkins untaxed by the Excise.]

1888 Fitchburg (Mass.) Daily Sentinel 13 Dec. (advt.) Friedmann & Leuterjung's celebrated electric razors; every one fully warranted.

1945 S. Lewis Cass Timberlane (1946) xxi. 126 She made coffee for them, and she lent them an electric razor.

2003 I. Rankin Question of Blood (2004) xxiii. 397 H..gave his face a wash before treating it to a once-over with the electric razor.

1926 Glasgow Herald 16 Dec. 13/6 This is the first Christmas that a..programme of Electric Records has been available for the gramophone.

1993 Lat. Amer. Mus. Rev. 14 297 This precious collection..joins the Brazilian popular music recordings from the invention of the electric record (end of the 1920s) to the 1960s.

1925 Manitoba Free Press 10 July 5/3 (advt.) Columbia. First with the new electric recording.

1971 B. Sidran Black Talk iii. 65 The three-minute time limit of early acoustic and electric recordings (78 rpm's) curtailed the extended improvisation of black music.

2000 T. Cowen In Praise of Commerc. Culture iv. 162 Electric recording could pick up blues growls and accents, as well as the nuances of a non-amplified guitar.

1850 Mechanics' Mag. 30 Mar. 247/2 The combination of the above apparatus with an electric regulator..so that the motion of the regulator shall make the wire to rise or fall in the mercury, and thus..prevent any material variation in the quantity of the electric current.

1936 Sci. Monthly May 470/2 The furnace had no electric regulator or stoker and the range was fed with gas.

1998 R. Waddington tr. S. Heier Grid Integration Wind Energy Conversion Syst. v. 284 The output power can be adjusted ten times faster by electric regulators than turbine output.

1797 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 87 144 If they are filled with water, then..a part of the charge only passes at each explosion through the water from wire to wire... The residuary electricity in the Leyden jar is nearly one half.]

1861 E. Atkinson tr. A. Ganot Elem. Treat. Physics ix. iv. 580 When a [Leyden] jar has been discharged and allowed to stand a short time, it exhibits a second charge, which is called the electric residue.

1859 Philos. Trans. 1858 (Royal Soc.) 148 385 For the determination of the conducting powers of these bodies, whose electric resistance was very great, a number of normal wires..were made.

1928 Jrnl. Iron & Steel Inst. 117 853 Materials of construction for electric resistance furnaces.

1997 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 24 Apr. 19/1 The luxury model of the ‘E-Meter’, a collection of rheostats, potentiometers, and dials that gauges your body's electric resistance, goes for $2400.

1907 Ogden (Utah) Standard 14 Dec. 7/7 The skating rink will close until Thursday in order to permit the management to clean off the floor with an electric shaver.

1933 Salamanca (N.Y.) Republican-Press 4 Dec. 8/2 (advt.) Things that men buy for their own use... Schick Electric Shaver.

2003 L. S. Clark From Angels to Aliens i. 33 The electric shaver her husband had been using is buzzing in the sink where he left it.

1879 Daily Constit. (Atlanta, Georgia) 27 July Howard, Wood & Co. have erected an attractive electric sign.

1937 Discovery July 217/1 Electric signs, posters, magazines, catalogues, all use the appeal of colour to enhance their commercial value.

1990 M. Torgov St. Farb's Day iv. 263 Under the blazing circussy electric signs, a solitary girl in red leather pants..follows the BMW as it passes by.

1857 W. Thomson in Proc. Royal Soc. 8 306 By striking one or other of the remaining six keys at the same time..as one of the first set, the second operation of the double electric signal will be that corresponding to the key of the first set.

1887 E. S. Phelps Gates Between vi. 77 In one corner of the room..was the clerk's desk; the electric signal shone faintly above it.

1916 W. B. Munro Princ. & Methods Munic. Admin. viii. 352 The flow of water through a single sprinkler-head will operate a gong or transmit an electric signal to the nearest fire station.

1977 Gramophone June 122/1 The speaker converts an electric signal into an acoustic wave.

2003 S. Greenfield Tomorrow's People (2004) iii. 66 Jessica Bayliss has been able to detect and monitor the tiny electric signal leaking through the skull that precedes an action.

1892 Trenton (New Jersey) Times 2 Dec. 4/4 Three of these [inventions]—a lock which is used in the prison, an electric lamp and an electric socket—have been patented.

1909 Daily Rev. (Decatur, Illinois) 19 Dec. 14/3 A plug with wire running to the motor [of the vacuum cleaner] is screwed into the nearest electric socket.

1956 J. B. Cornell & R. J. Smith Two Japanese Villages iii. 22 In most houses, every room has an electric socket.

1998 S. Faulks Charlotte Gray i. ix. 91 A shock like that from an electric socket jarred his fingers, and the ball fizzed flat and low for fifty yards.

1745 Gentleman's Mag. Apr. 194/1 M. Du Fay..could not succeed in his attempts to set on fire gunpowder by the electric spark.

1846 G. Grote Hist. Greece I. i. xvii. 646 Animated by the electric spark of genius.

1871 J. Lassell & C. Lassell tr. T. J. H. Schellen Spectrum Anal. §7. 21 When the electric spark flashes from the thunder-cloud to the earth.

1924 G. E. Hale Depths of Universe i. 23 We can change this spectrum very decidedly..by placing some strontium chloride in an electric spark, which ionizes the vapor.

2001 K. Lette Nip 'n' Tuck 243 I spent ten years on Death Row readin' all about electric sparks. Me lawyers, see, they reckoned the electric chair was unconstit-chew-ional.

1901 Reno (Nevada) Evening Gaz. 28 Dec. 1/2 They closed negotiations for the erection of an electric steel plant at Elizabethtown.

1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl. at Process Electric steel process, a process in the metallurgy of steel whereby the necessary heat for fusion and the required chemical action are secured by the intense heat of the electric arc passing between electrodes in a suitable crucible or furnace.

1924 A. J. Allmand & H. J. T. Ellingham Princ. Appl. Electrochem. (ed. 2) xxiii. 557 There is now a big permanent demand for electric steel for service where capacity to resist sudden changes of stress is all-important.

?1949 Simple Guide Basic Processes Iron & Steel Industry 37 Basic-lined arc furnaces are chiefly used for the main production of electric steel.

1995 G. Tweeddale Steel City iii. 112 In 1910 Edgar Allen made the first commercial melts of electric steel in a 3½-ton Héroult arc furnace.

1869 Jrnl. Royal Geogr. Soc. 39 278 I was near the spot when an electric storm broke over it; and never before did I hear discharges so loud.

1906 Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republican 14 June 16 A severe electric storm, accompanied by a high wind, swept over Springfield.

1991 T. Pakenham Scramble for Afr. xxviii. 505 A series of electric storms flickered on the horizon, in the Dardanelles, in India, in China.

1880 London, Edinb., & Dublin Philos. Mag. 5th Ser. 10 396 The above equation evidently does not hold for pressures lower than that for the minimum electric strength.

1961 M. G. Say Electr. Engineer's Ref. Bk. (ed. 10) iii. 77 Several new types of synthetic resin-coated ‘enamelled’ wires are available..as follows: expoxy resin coated (e.g. ‘Lewsyn’) having high electric strength; polyurethane coated wire [etc.].

2004 V. Y. Ushakov Insulation High-Voltage Equipm. iii. 75 More definite is the effect of electrode degassing on the electric strength of liquids.

1879 Proc. Royal Soc. 170 418 If the electric stress is continued in the same direction for any appreciable time, a permanent strain is produced, and the apparent specific inductive capacity differs from the true one.

1935 Discovery July 213/2 The behaviour of air, solids, liquids and the vacuum respectively as dielectrics when under high electric stress.

1969 Ultrasonics 7 230/1 The phase velocity of sound in piezoelectrics is related to the sense and to the direction of the electric stress.

1888 Engin. & Mining Jrnl. 18 Feb. 126/2 Electric Sunstroke.—..M. Defontaine..states that workmen employed in operating the electric forges at Creusôt are subject to a form of sunstroke, which he attributes to the intense light radiated from the focus of the forge.

1894 Friend 21 July 414/2 The phenomenon known as ‘electric sunstroke’ is now attracting special attention among workmen employed in melting metals by means of the electric process.

1902 Dietetic & Hygienic Gaz. 18 476/1 It was found that the light of an arc lamp of 6,0000 candle power rapidly destroys bacteria, and that it is possible to produce electric sun-stroke closely resembling insolation proper.

1867 Sci. Amer. 19 Oct. 242/3 Of a somewhat different character, is Hall's electric switch, so arranged that the continuous ringing of a bell gives evidence of the misplacement of the switch.

1889 Science 21 June 491/1 The hoist..can be run forwards or backwards with the greatest facility by the simple movement in one direction or another of an electric switch.

1930 Z. Fitzgerald in M. Brucolli Zelda Fitzgerald Coll. Writings (1991) 318 The stone corridor full of electric switches and signs about smoking.

1999 N.Y. Times 6 Dec. c5/3 Greenmountain.com plays middleman between wind farms and other clean sources of electricity and consumers who want to feel guilt-free when they flick an electric switch.

1802 A. Volta in Jrnl. Nat. Philos. Feb. 137 In the one case, as well as in the other, the electric tension [It. la tensione elettrica] rises, during the contact, to the same point.

1832 Philos. Mag. 2nd Ser. 11 406 In the voltaic pile having a certain degree of electric tension, the sparks pass between the zinc and copper poles.

1846 M. Faraday in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 136 16 Perhaps this state is a state of electric tension tending to a current.

1940 G. Gamow Birth & Death of Sun iii. 79 Lawrence decided to let the particles run around in a circle and to give them a slight push, by applying some electric tension, each time they passed a definite ‘sign post’.

1996 R. Norton & D. Brenders Communication & Consequences iv. 90 We just looked at each other, nobody said a word, but the air was full of electric tension.

1859 T. P. Shaffner Telegr. Man. liii. 743 It was the electric time-ball, indicating the second, and the most minute division of time!.

1881 Science 7 May 210/1 (heading) The Kansas City electric time ball.

1893 Lima (Ohio) Times-Democrat 2 Sept. 3/6 The electric toaster will toast two large slices of bread thoroughly in one minute.

1926 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 3 July 10/2 (advt.) Upright Electric Toasters. Will toast two pieces at the one time. Heavy nickelplated finish.

1997 W. Ophuls Requiem for Mod. Polit. iv. 128 Automatic dishwashers and electric toasters are cheap and abundant; maids and cooks are not.

1908 G. R. Johnston Some Comments on 1907 Ann. Rep. Amer. Telephone & Telegr. Co. 15 Sundry electric traction companies.

1921 Amer. Legion Weekly 26 Aug. 20/3 The change from steam haulage to electric traction would take place slowly in certain regions.

2000 P. W. B. Semmens & A. J. Goldfinch How Steam Locomotives really Work ix. 336 With the development of electric traction techniques it became possible to use Mobile Load Bank vehicles for the same purpose.

1898 T. O'C. Sloane Standard Electr. Dict. (ed. 2) 627 Torch, a portable apparatus for producing a spark for gas lighting... Synonym—Electric Wand.

1887 Manufacturer & Builder May 98/3 The practical application of the method of electric welding.

1907 E. Wilson & F. Lydall Electr. Traction I. 95 The electric welding process..welds the rails together.

1971 Tools & their Uses (U.S. Navy Bureau of Naval Personnel) (1973) i. 59 Special flameproof gloves are designed for gas and electric welding.

1866 E. E. Marcy & F. W. Hunt Homœopathic Theory & Pract. Med. I. 152 Mild forms of it [sc. electricity] are the electric bath, the electric wind, and friction through flannel.

1899 London, Edinb. & Dublin Philos. Mag. 5th Ser. 48 401 (title) On the velocity and mass of the ions in the electric wind in air.

2001 O. Sacks Uncle Tungsten xiv. 157 If there was a sharp point nearby, electricity would stream from it in a luminous brush, a little corposant, and one could blow out candles with the outstreaming ‘electric wind’.

1946 Charleston (W. Va.) Daily Mail 4 June 15/4 (advt.) Chrysler ‘Crown Imperial’ 4 door sedan, electric windows and extras.

2001 Which Kit? May 52/3 The electric windows on the demo car zoom up and down effortlessly.

1819 Ld. Byron Mazeppa vi. 16 Involuntary sparks of thought..Conveying, as the electric wire, We know not how, the absorbing fire.

1854 C. Dickens Hard Times ii. xi. 247 The electric wires..ruled a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening sky.

1860 M. L. Booth Hist. City N.Y. 720 The electric wire had not yet girdled the earth, and this rapid transmission of news seemed almost a miracle.

1899 Westm. Gaz. 23 Oct. 2/3 They tore down gas-pipes, water-pipes, and electric wires from the walls, demolished the fixtures, wrenched the plumbing apart.

1951 C. Beaton Diary July in Self Portrait with Friends (1979) xvii. 232 Farmer Bundy suggested an electric wire, but no one else much cared for that idea.

2000 N.Y. Times 3 Aug. f13/1 The 37-by-28-inch desktop..comes with a built-in surge protector, storage shelf and cutouts for electric wires.

1905 Town & Country 14 Jan. 19/1 This year's show will demonstrate much advancement in electric-powered automobiles.

1972 McGraw-Hill Yearbk. Sci. & Technol. 1971 403/1 The vehicles will be electric-powered and rubber-tired.

2007 Dayton (Ohio) Daily News (Nexis) 12 Mar. d5 Thor, introduced in 1908..was the first electric-powered washing machine.

1904 Windsor Mag. 20 107 Mr. Bruce Bowring..turned and gazed querulously across the electric-lit spaces of his superb private office.

1941 P. Hamilton Hangover Square iii. i. 73 He..came out over the super-soft carpet into the thronged electric-lit darkness of the winter's afternoon.

2005 Miami Herald (Nexis) 1 Sept. a27 The..glitz of electric-lit rows of casinos and a booming economy.