Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A material that conducts little or no electricity, heat, or sound.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A substance which does not conduct or transmit a particular form of energy (specifically, heat or electricity), or which transmits it with difficulty: thus, wool is a non-conductor of heat; glass and dry wood are non-conductors of electricity. See
conductor , 6, electricity, and heat.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Physics) A substance which does not conduct, that is, convey or transmit, heat, electricity, sound, vibration, or the like, or which transmits them with difficulty; an insulator
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun any material that does not
conduct electricity ; adielectric
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a material such as glass or porcelain with negligible electrical or thermal conductivity
Etymologies
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Examples
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For he knew, as true men did not, that water, flowing water, was a nonconductor of distorts and illusions.
Merlin's Mirror Norton, Andre 1975
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The use of electricity for this purpose is made possible by the fact that comparatively dry cotton is a nonconductor of electricity.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 Various
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Again, ice, like water, is almost a nonconductor of heat, and earth saturated with water and frozen, is like unto it, so that neither the warmth of the subsoil or surface-soil can be readily imparted to it.
Farm drainage The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land with Stones, Wood, Plows, and Open Ditches, and Especially with Tiles Henry Flagg French
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Zinc is the best nonconductor of heat that I know of.
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On this point he remarks that the evil effects of the scale are due to the fact that it is relatively a nonconductor of heat.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 Various
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A titanic shell of eight-inch cosmium, a space, with braces of the same nonconductor of heat, cosmium, and a two inch inner hull.
Invaders from the Infinite John Wood Campbell 1940
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All you have to do is wrap your core with a nonconductor, say nylon thread, and presto, nothing comes out.
Sense from Thought Divide Mark Clifton 1934
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They took a dry stick because it was a nonconductor of electricity, you know, and rolled the man over to one side, so he was out of reach of the wires.
Walter and the Wireless Sara Ware Bassett 1920
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They have in them two pieces of tinfoil separated by glass, which is a nonconductor of electric currents, and various other acids and minerals.
Walter and the Wireless Sara Ware Bassett 1920
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Evidently they put small faith in the "three thousand miles of cool sea-water" as a nonconductor of warfare!
The World Decision Robert Herrick 1903
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