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A piece of apparatus used for reversing the direction of an electrical current; an attachment to certain electrical machines, by means of which alternating currents are made to be continuous or to have the same direction.

To serve as a medium for conveying; to transmit, as heat, light, electricity, etc.

Capability of being conducted; as, the conductibility of heat or electricity.

ce or body capable of being a medium for the transmission of certain forces, esp. heat or electricity; specifically, a lightning rod.

A system of electric traction, esp. for light railways, in which the actuating current passes along a wire or rail laid in an underground conduit, from which the current is "picked up" by a plow or other device fixed to the car or electric locomotive. Hence Conduit railway.

A device for holding two parts of an electrical conductor in contact.

ntinued; protracted; extended; as, a continuous line of railroad; a continuous current of electricity. he can hear its continuous murmur. Longfellow.

A process of transfer or transmission, as of heat or electricity, by means of currents in liquids or gases, resulting from changes of temperature and other causes. Liquids are generally heated by convection -- when heat is applied from bellow. Nichol.

Caused or accomplished by convection; as, a convective discharge of electricity. Faraday.

h ductile and malleable, and very tenacious. It is one of the best conductors of heat and electricity. Symbol Cu. Atomic weight 63.3. It is one of the most useful metals in itself, and also in its alloys, brass and bronze.

The standard unit of quantity in electrical measurements. It is the quantity of electricity conveyed in one second by the current produced by an electro-motive force of one volt acting in a circuit having a resistance of one ohm, or the quantitty transferred by one ampère in one second. Formerly called weber.…

Any instrument by which electricity can be measured in coulombs.

The law that the force exerted between two electric or magnetic charges is directly proportional to the product of the charges and inversely to the square of the distance between them.

The torpedo, or electric ray, the touch of which gives an electric shock. See Electric fish, and Torpedo.

A pencil of carbon used in producing electric light. Crayon board, cardboard with a surface prepared for crayon drawing. -- Crayon drawing, the act or art of drawing with crayons; a drawing made with crayons.

, a current of water or of air; that which resembles a stream in motion; as, a current of electricity. Two such silver currents, when they join, Do glorify the banks that bound them in. Shak. The surface of the ocean is furrowed by currents, whose direction . . . the navigator should know. Nichol.

Any device for detecting the presence of electric waves. The influence of electric waves on the resistance of a particular kind of electric circuit, on the magnetization of steel, on the polarization of an electrolytic cell, or on the electric condition of a vacuum has been applied in the various cymoscopes.…

A device for restoring a coherer to its normal condition after it has been affected by an electric wave, a process usually accomplished by some method of tapping or shaking, or by rotation of the coherer.

opposite points, and nearly meeting, for the purpose of exploding gaseous mixtures by an electric spark, as in gas analysis, etc.

also, between, apart, asunder, across. Before a vowel dia- becomes di-; as, diactinic; dielectric, etc.