carburetor
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of carburetor
Explanation
A carburetor is the part of a car's engine that combines gas vapors and air in a way that keeps things running. Many vehicles, including some small airplanes, have carburetors. Newer cars, which tend to have fuel injected engines, no longer have carburetors, but there are still plenty of cars and trucks on the road that do. An engine with a carburetor is called an internal combustion engine, and it relies on the carburetor to mix fuel and air in the right proportion. The word itself comes from the now-obsolete carburet, "combine or charge with a hydrocarbon."
Vocabulary lists containing carburetor
Automobiles
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Commonly Misspelled Words, List 4
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Fish in a Tree
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One memory stood out among the others: Watching Dale Earnhardt tinker with his carburetor under the hood of his car.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 17, 2023
In high school, she shelved books at the local library and read incessantly: not only Chinua Achebe and Toni Morrison but also thrillers, histories, how-to books about fixing a carburetor.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2023
He collects parcels and mail on request, and shops for the spare carburetor and shocks that someone needs at home.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 28, 2022
May the odds be ever in your carburetor.
From The Verge ● Apr. 21, 2022
He worked on his car himself, a used green Impala with carburetor trouble.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
The son of an automobile mechanic from the suburbs of London, Dr. Calne had long wondered why damaged organs, like faulty carburetors, couldn’t be swapped out for new ones.
From New York Times ● Jan. 15, 2024
“They used to be building carburetors, but you won’t be doing that much anymore with electric vehicles, but we are going to have to build an awful lot of vehicle batteries,” he said.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 14, 2022
Brian Hohmann has spent decades adapting to changes in automotive technology, from attending a school to fix carburetors — now an obsolete technology — to learning how to program.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2022
"From greasy carburetors to plants in the same space," Resnick observes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 1, 2018
With two four-barrel carburetors, I could get the Buick up to one hundred miles an hour on Little Daytona.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
