Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An apparatus consisting essentially of a compartment spun about a central axis to separate contained materials of different specific gravities, or to separate colloidal particles suspended in a liquid.
- noun An apparatus in which humans or animals are enclosed and which is revolved to simulate the effects of acceleration in a spacecraft.
- transitive verb To rotate (something) in a centrifuge or to separate, dehydrate, or test by means of this apparatus.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To submit to very rapid rotatory motion in a centrifuge or centrifugal machine in order to separate suspended solid particles from a liquid, or two immiscible liquids of different densities from one another.
- noun A centrifugal machine; specifically, a form of centrifugal machine employed to separate the solid particles suspended in a fluid, such as the blood or urine.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb to drive out; to subject to the action of a centrifuge.
- noun an apparatus having containers for liquids arrayed around a central pivot and rotated at a high speed, thus generating centrifugal force on the liquid, and separating substances (such as particles of solid or globules of an immiscible liquid) mixed together in suspension within the liquid. Suspensions which would settle only very slowly or not at all under gravity can be made to separate quickly in such a device.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A device in which a mixture of
denser andlighter materials (normally dispersed in aliquid ) isseparated by beingspun about a central axis at high speed. - noun figuratively An apparatus in which humans are spun to simulate
acceleration in anaircraft orspacecraft . - verb To
rotate something in a centrifuge in order to separate its constituents
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an apparatus that uses centrifugal force to separate particles from a suspension
- verb rotate at very high speed in order to separate the liquids from the solids
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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One alleged target is Iran's main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, 200 miles south of Teheran.
All we need is Blog? Ed 2006
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* Caught in this estrogen centrifuge is "Zack" - Dane Cook - pawn of corporate overlords and oppressed caricature of Everyman who toils beneath the yoke of an insufficient hourly wage.
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“With advances in centrifuge technology, it is now possible to conceal a uranium enrichment program inside a single warehouse.”
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“The centrifuge is the single most dangerous piece of nuclear technology,” Dr. Obeidi said in his book.
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But my favorite was the huge bottle-shaped centrifuge, which is used to either weed out unfit people and to make the fit * more* fit, by getting them used to multiple Gs. They insert you from the side in a little capsule and then swing you around at a few revolutions a minute.
Esther Dyson: Release 0.9: Charles Simonyi's launch - my excellent EDventure! 2008
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Speaking at the Natanz facility, Ahmadinejad said that Iran was now capable of producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale; in other words, the centrifuge plant was operational.
The Secret War with Iran Ronen Bergman 2007
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Speaking at the Natanz facility, Ahmadinejad said that Iran was now capable of producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale; in other words, the centrifuge plant was operational.
The Secret War with Iran Ronen Bergman 2007
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Experts say the scope of the testing and enrichment is minuscule, that to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon, the regime would need to operate hundreds, maybe thousand more so-called centrifuge machines.
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Another are very, very high speed rotors -- so-called centrifuge -- which store energy not electrically like a battery or by, say, having hydrogen and oxygen separated, which you then put together in a fuel cell, but in the fly wheel you just have this mechanical energy stored up.
Background Briefing On Clean Car ITY National Archives 1993
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A centrifuge is a machine that spins fluids at high speeds to separate matter of different densities.
Chapter 15 1982
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