Definitions

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

  • adjective Causing coldness; chilling.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Causing cold; producing or generating cold: as, frigorific mixtures. See freezing-mixture.

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

  • adjective Causing cold; producing or generating cold.

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

  • adjective causing to cool or chill

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective causing cold; cooling or chilling

Etymologies

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

[Latin frīgorificus : frīgus, frīgor-, the cold + -ficus, -fic.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin frigorificus; frigus, frigoris, cold + facere to make: compare French frigorifique.

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Examples

  • The term is applicable to machines or devices that force the heat transfer; for example, fans, frigorific, percolators, radiators, etc.

    Unthreaded #16 « Climate Audit 2007

  • It is the chilling influence of the ethereal stream which originated the idea among philosophers, of _frigorific impressions, darted from a clear sky_.

    Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence T. Bassnett

  • It suffices to cause the current of water which issues from the condenser of the frigorific machine to pass into the worm of the boiler.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 299, September 24, 1881 Various

  • This refrigerator is like those which we employ in our sulphurous anhydride frigorific apparatus.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 299, September 24, 1881 Various

  • In fact, the exhaust of the steam engine which actuates the sulphurous anhydride pump is directed into a worm which circulates through the first boiler, A, and the refrigerator, H, of the frigorific machine keeps up the second rectification, which was brought about below the surrounding temperature, and which for this reason takes place without necessitating any combustion of coal.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 299, September 24, 1881 Various

  • Count Rumford appears to have rightly conjectured that the inhabitants of certain hot countries, who sleep at nights on the tops of their houses, are cooled during this exposure by the radiation of their heat to the sky; or, according to his manner of expression, by receiving frigorific rays from the heavens.

    A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume III: Modern development of the physical sciences 1904

  • But the frigorific effect of leafy structure is well observed in the deposit of dew and the occurrence of hoarfrost on the foliage of grasses and other small vegetables, and on other objects of similar form and consistence, when the temperature of the air a few feet above has not been brought down to the dew-point, still less to 32 degrees, the degree of cold required to congeal dew to frost [31].

    Earth as Modified by Human Action, The~ Chapter 03 (historical) 1874

  • Upon substituting balls of snow for heated bodies, they even went so far as to prove that frigorific foci may be formed by way of reflection.

    Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men Arago, Francois 1859

  • But the frigorific effect of leafy structure is well observed in the deposit of dew and the occurrence of hoarfrost on the foliage of grasses and other small vegetables, and on other objects of similar form and consistence, when the temperature of the air a few feet above has not been brought down to the dew-point, still less to 32 degrees, the degree of cold required to congeal dew to frost.

    The Earth as Modified by Human Action George P. Marsh 1841

  • For neither would Teufelsdröckh's mad daydream, here as we presume covertly intended, of levelling Society (_levelling_ it indeed with a vengeance, into one huge drowned marsh!), and so attaining the political effects of Nudity without its frigorific or other consequences, -- be thereby realised.

    Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History Thomas Carlyle 1838

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