inhibitorn.

1902 W. James Varieties Relig. Experience xi. 265 Danger is for most men the great inhibitor of action.

1908 W. McDougall Introd. Social Psychol. iii. 55 [Fear] is thus the great inhibitor of action.

1955 Sci. Amer. Apr. 72/2 Many seeds have water-soluble germination inhibitors in their covering.

1973 Nature 12 Jan. 140/1 The hydroid may contain a substance which inhibits its nematocysts from discharging and stinging other members of the colony. An occasional hydroid may provide Pagurus with such an inhibitor.

1911 Jrnl. Genetics 1 190 The Brown Leghorn..never produces pigmented birds and we..regard it as entirely without the factor P. But it possesses the inhibitor factor I.

1911 R. C. Punnett Mendelism (ed. 3) vii. 70 Probably we ought to regard the beardless as a bearded wheat in which there is an inhibitor that stops the beard from growing.

1925 D. F. Jones Genetics Plant & Animal Improvem. iv. 75 A fifth factor, I, when present, prevents any color from appearing, no matter what other factors are there. It is called an inhibitor.

1949 F. B. Hutt Genetics Fowl vi. 154 The first evidence that the inhibitor of dermal melanin is sex linked was found by Davenport (1906).

1965 J. A. Serra Mod. Genetics I. iii. 60 Inhibitors..completely hinder the manifestation of the gene with which they interact.

1914 S. E. Sheppard Photo-chem. vii. 289 The actual inhibitor in the case of ammonia is probably NCl₃.

1924 F. O. Rice in H. S. Taylor Treat. Physical Chem. II. xiv. 923 A type of negative catalysis in which the inhibitor combines with one of the reactants to form a molecular compound... The rôle of the inhibitor in all these reactions would therefore be that of a competitor for one of the molecular species undergoing change.

1925 Jrnl. Soc. Chem. Industry 44 163 t/1 (heading) Water-line corrosion of iron and steel, with special reference to the action of the so-called ‘inhibitors’ of corrosion.

1930 S. Field & A. D. Weill Electro-plating 81 To prevent this undue attack of the metal in preference to the oxide scale, substances called ‘inhibitors’ are added to the pickles and dips.

1935 Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 39 791 An attractive method of preventing ice formation..is the use of some form of inhibitor which may be added to the fuel.

1938 W. V. Thorpe Biochem. for Med. Students x. 130 In many instances the inhibition of an enzyme can be regarded as the result of chemical combination between the enzyme and the inhibitor.

1951 I. L. Finar Org. Chem. I. iii. 44 Gum formation in cracked gasolines is prevented by the addition of inhibitors, which are mainly phenols or aromatic amines.

1962 H. L. Kern et al. in A. Pirie Lens Metabolism 385 Ouabain is a relatively specific inhibitor of cationic transport.

1962 Lancet 27 Jan. 192/1 It seems likely that the tissue activator may be ‘unavailable’ because an inhibitor is present, but this conclusion must be tentative until more is known about the nature and precise measurement of the inhibitors of fibrinolysis.

1968 R. O. C. Norman Princ. Org. Synthesis xv. 480 It is advisable to add a small quantity of an inhibitor to the more readily polymerized olefins..to prevent polymerization during storage.

1971 P. J. McMahon Aircraft Propulsion x. 298 Small quantities of various inhibitors may be used to restrict the rates of reaction in certain places. An inhibitor could for example prevent case temperatures from becoming excessive by cutting down the burning rate of propellants immediately adjacent to the case surface.

1972 Nature 18 Feb. 398/2 A generalized metabolic inhibitor..elicited 0% drug response by itself.