boostern.

1894 Jrnl. Inst. Electr. Engineers 23 79 I found in use in Chicago a system of raising the voltage on the feeders when the pressure falls, owing to the increase of load, by switching in motor dynamos. They have given the name ‘boosters’ to these instruments.

1902 Encycl. Brit. XXV. 34/1 Taking the current from the mains to the battery through a ‘booster’, that is, a dynamo arranged so that its E.M.F. is added to that of the mains.

1905 R. E. B. Crompton Unsolved Problems in Electr. Engin. 16 We have obtained regulation by means of automatic motor-generators, to which the name of ‘boosters’ has been generally given.

1906 Times Engin. Suppl. 22 Aug. 267/3 The use either of a large full-voltage battery for regulating purposes, a set of cells as back E.M.F.'s for the near feeders, or as a third alternative, the provision of extra boosters.

1911 Engineer 10 Mar. 237/3 A booster in use for boosting the pressure of an overhead conductor of an electric tramway system.

1911 A. B. Smith Mod. Amer. Telephony v. 77 Each line must be provided with its own booster battery.

1924 S. R. Roget Dict. Electr. Terms 24/2 Booster Transformer (or Boosting Transformer), a transformer with its secondary in series with the line to compensate for line drop on an A.C. feeder.

1935 A. R. Nilson & J. L. Hornung Pract. Radio Communication viii. 383 If the lines are long, it is necessary to insert booster amplifiers... For high-quality transmission such boosters should be inserted every 10 to 20 or more miles.

1954 Times 10 Nov. 2/6 The Truleigh Hill booster, installed to improve Sussex reception.

1959 Economist 7 Mar. 878/2 Hundreds of remote communities have owed their television fare to ‘booster’ stations that are built on high places and that relay and amplify the original broadcast signal.

1944 A. L. Murphy Rockets 72 Some being catapulted by booster rockets, while other craft will take off as rockets.

1950 Jrnl. Brit. Interplanet. Soc. 9 175 A single annular~shaped tank, the bottom of which is attached to the booster motors.

1961 Spectator 21 Apr. 546 The huge boosters that launched Major Gagarin's capsule.

1968 Times 16 Dec. 7/4 To begin with, Apollo 8, still attached to the third stage of the Saturn 5 booster, will be parked in a 119-mile earth orbit.

1950 in Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Add.

1953 M. Fishbein Med. Progress 66 The use of ‘booster doses’ will usually bring the process back under control.

1956 Collier's Year Bk. 563/1 The effect of the vaccine, once a child has had both primary shots and a booster, seven or more months later, will last for a long time.

1957 I. Asimov Earth is Room Enough (1960) 13 Additional work as a postdoctorate teaching fellow acted as a booster shot.

1957 Times 9 Dec. 11/5 In the case of diphtheria inoculations, it is usually considered necessary to give what is technically known as a ‘booster’ injection when the child starts school.

1917 A. Marshall Explosives (ed. 2) II. xxxi. 527 Recently brass tubes 4 inches long containing a charge of trinitro-toluene have been introduced under the name of renforts or boosters.

1927 Engineering 11 Nov. 631 (caption) Booster pumps and compression tank.

1938 Fuller & Snow Air Conditioning v. 196 One of the standard types of booster heaters.

1945 Reader's Digest Apr. 97/2 The 74 booster stations in France's long-distance telephone system.

1958 Observer 15 June 10/2 Manufacturers [of shampoos] can meet these difficulties by..adding a foam booster.