Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, producing, or operated by electricity.
  • adjective Of or related to sound created or altered by an electrical or electronic device.
  • adjective Amplified by an electronic device.
  • adjective Emotionally exciting; thrilling.
  • adjective Exceptionally tense; highly charged with emotion.
  • noun An electrically powered machine or vehicle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • See motor.
  • noun A railway or car operated by electricity: usually in the plural.
  • Containing electricity, or capable of exhibiting it when excited by friction: as, an electric body, such as amber or glass.
  • Pertaining to or consisting in electricity: as, electric power; an electric discharge.
  • Derived from or produced by electricity: as, an electric shock; an electric light.
  • Conveying electricity; producing electricity; communicating a shock by electricity: as, an electric machine; electric wires; the electric eel or fish.
  • Operated by electricity: as, an electric bell; an electric railway.
  • Figuratively, full of fire, spirit, or passion, and capable of communicating it to others; magnetic.
  • noun A body or substance capable of exhibiting electricity by means of friction or otherwise, and of resisting the passage of it from one body to another. See electricity.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Pertaining to electricity; consisting of, containing, derived from, or produced by, electricity
  • adjective Capable of occasioning the phenomena of electricity.
  • adjective Electrifying; thrilling; magnetic.
  • adjective powered by electricity.
  • adjective See under Aura.
  • adjective See Battery.
  • adjective See under Brush.
  • adjective See Telegraph cable, under Telegraph.
  • adjective See under Candle.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) one of three or more large species of African catfish of the genus Malapterurus (esp. M. electricus of the Nile). They have a large electrical organ and are able to give powerful shocks; -- called also sheathfish.
  • adjective See under Clock, and see Electro-chronograph.
  • adjective a current or stream of electricity traversing a closed circuit formed of conducting substances, or passing by means of conductors from one body to another which is in a different electrical state.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) a South American eel-like fresh-water fish of the genus Gymnotus (G. electricus), from two to five feet in length, capable of giving a violent electric shock. See Gymnotus.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) any fish which has an electrical organ by means of which it can give an electrical shock. The best known kinds are the torpedo, the gymnotus, or electrical eel, and the electric cat. See Torpedo, and Gymnotus.
  • adjective [archaic] the supposed matter of electricity; lightning.
  • adjective (Elec.) a collection of electrical points regarded as forming, by an analogy with optical phenomena, an image of certain other electrical points, and used in the solution of electrical problems.
  • adjective an apparatus for generating, collecting, or exciting, electricity, as by friction.
  • adjective See Electro-motor, 2.
  • adjective (Physics) See under Osmose.
  • adjective a hand pen for making perforated stencils for multiplying writings. It has a puncturing needle driven at great speed by a very small magneto-electric engine on the penhandle.
  • adjective a railway in which the machinery for moving the cars is driven by an electric current.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) the torpedo.
  • adjective See Telegraph.
  • noun (Physics) A nonconductor of electricity, as amber, glass, resin, etc., employed to excite or accumulate electricity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, relating to, produced by, operated with, or utilising electricity; electrical.
  • adjective Of, or relating to an electronic version of a musical instrument that has an acoustic equivalent.
  • adjective Being emotionally thrilling; electrifying.
  • adjective Drawing electricity from an external source; not battery-operated; corded.
  • noun informal Electricity.
  • noun rare An electric car.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin ēlectricus, deriving from amber, as by rubbing, from Latin ēlectrum, amber, from Greek ēlektron.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From New Latin ēlectricus ("of amber"), from Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron, "amber"), related to ἠλέκτωρ (ēlektor, "shining sun").

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