arc lamp

American  

[ahrk lamp] / ˈɑrk ˌlæmp /

noun

• arc lamps
  plural

1. Also, arc light. a lamp in which the light source is a high-intensity electric arc either between carbon rods in air or between metal electrodes in a xenon gas atmosphere enclosed in a quartz bulb.

---

arc lamp Scientific  

1. An electric light in which a current produces light when an arc traverses the gap between two incandescent electrodes in a container filled with a gas, such as xenon. The two electrodes are usually made of carbon and are eventually vaporized by the heat they generate. Arc lamps are used to produce intense light (as in spotlights) and to produce heat for welding.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• arc lamps
  plural

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

arc lamp

The sun rises early along the mid-coast of Maine, and in November it can be as brilliant as an arc lamp, unkindly revealing imperfections and the wrinkles of age.

From Time Magazine Archive

When he was 19, he produced an arc lamp and soon after secured patents on motors, generators and their regulators.

From Time Magazine Archive

He approached the lighthouse engineering firm of Chance Brothers Co., who said they could furnish a special high-intensity arc lamp operating through three lenses to give a single beam of 15,000,000,000 candlepower.

From Time Magazine Archive

The strip E is only large enough to carry the current across for a moment, and is immediately consumed, but an arc of light is then formed between the carbons as in the arc lamp.

From Wrinkles in Electric Lighting by Vincent Stephen

No arc lamp on Fifth Avenue blazed more brightly than did this one on the edge of the Gobi Desert where none of its kind had ever shone before.

From Across Mongolian Plains A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' by Roy Chapman Andrews