lightning arrester

American  

noun

1. a device for preventing damage to radio, telephonic, or other electric equipment from lightning or other high-voltage currents, using spark gaps to carry the current to the ground without passing through the device.

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lightning arrester British  

noun

1. a device that protects electrical equipment, such as an aerial, from an excessive voltage resulting from a lightning discharge or other accidental electric surge, by discharging it to earth

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Etymology

Origin of lightning arrester

First recorded in 1855–60

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lightning arrester

A lightning arrester no bigger than a quart-size fruit jar receives the bolt, discharges it harmlessly through its coils.

From Time Magazine Archive

Proper Functions:—A fuse is not a good lightning arrester.

From Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. by Kempster Miller

“Why, you thick heads,” replied Jimmy, with more force than politeness, “don’t you know that you don’t have to have a lightning arrester with a loop aerial?”

From The Radio Boys at the Sending Station Making Good in the Wireless Room by Allen Chapman

The fault was found in a lightning arrester which one of the operators had neglected in the cable hut.

From A Woman's Journey through the Philippines On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route by Florence Kimball Russel

To protect the house and your apparatus from lightning insert a fuse and a little carbon block lightning arrester such as are used by the telephone company in their installations of house phones.

From Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son by John Mills