permeatorn.
/ˈpəːmɪeɪtə/, U.S. /ˈpərmiˌeɪdər/ 1.
a. Politics. An infiltrator of a political organization; spec. a socialist believing in changing institutions from within rather than through violent revolution. Cf. Fabian adj. 2a. Now historical.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > enquiry > investigation, inspection > secret observation, spying > procedures used in spying > [noun] > infiltration > person engaged in
permeator1890
infiltrator1944
penetration agent1966
1890 A. S. E. Lester & E. F. A. Sergeant Name & Fame II. xix. 104 His art was to be ubiquitous; he aspired to be the great permeator of the Conservative party.
1912 G. K. Chesterton Manalive II. ii. 248 ‘You leave it to me,’ said the practical Socialist..‘I have a way with me. I'm a permeator.’
1944 G. B. Shaw Everybody's Polit. What's What? xxxi. 271 I, a Fabian permeator, knew the questions and had doctrinaire answers ready for some of them.
1963 Amer. Hist. Rev. 69 307 To the socialists of 1892–1893 the Fabians were ‘permeators’ (their tactics were ‘to permeate Liberalism with Socialism’).
2000 Independent (Nexis) 20 Jan. 5 The Webbs—the permeators, sometimes the temporisers, never the revolutionaries.
b. gen. A thing which permeates something; (Physiology) = permeant n. 2.
ΘΚΠ
the world > movement > motion in a certain direction > movement over, across, through, or past > [noun] > through any medium or space > permeation > that which
searcher1678
permeance1845
permeator1961
1961 Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. 81 308/1 The will is the governor of the physical nature; the physical nature is the permeator of the physical frame.
1979 Amer. Ethnologist 6 800 Water, the most ubiquitous permeator on a planet largely covered by this element.
1995 Jrnl. Plant Physiol. 145 726 Na+..decreased membrane partiality to lipid permeators.
2.
a. Soil Science. An instrument for measuring the permeability of a medium by finding how far a probe will penetrate it under specified conditions. rare.
ΚΠ
1924 Ecology 5 19 A serviceable soil permeator may be devised by attaching a coiled wire spring..to a bluntly pointed..rod... On exerting the total pressure of the spring, the number of millimeters of penetration of the soil by the rod is read as the degree of permeability.
b. A vessel divided into two by a semi-permeable membrane, used esp. in the large-scale removal of solutes from a liquid by reverse osmosis.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > freedom from impurities > removal of impurities > filtering or percolating > [noun] > filter or percolator > others
filter bed1828
physeter1842
sack-filter1875
biofilter1936
permeator1975
1975 M. J. Hammer Water & Waste-water Technol. vii. 266 (caption) A module of 24 reverse-osmosis permeator units used to desalt a municipal ground-water supply.
1986 Chem. Week 26 Nov. 109/3 Du Pont..has recently initiated a new system that uses..hollow-fiber, reverse-osmosis permeators to concentrate textile finish wastes.
1991 Jrnl. Membrane Sci. 59 53 A Continuous Porous Membrane Permeator (CPMP) was constructed that allowed the condensible vapour in the feed stream to permeate preferentially through the membrane under the driving force of a pressure difference across the membrane.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1890