make-and-break

American  

[mayk-uhn-brayk] / ˈmeɪk ənˈbreɪk /

adjective

1. noting or pertaining to a device, operated by an electric current, for automatically opening or closing a circuit once it has been closed or opened by a mechanical springlike device, as in a doorbell.

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Etymology

Origin of make-and-break

First recorded in 1855–60

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

make-and-break

Two types of make-and-break connection are used, the common "buzzer" operated by the magnetism of the core in the coil and the mercury break operated by a small motor.

From The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 700 Things for Boys to Do by Popular Mechanics Co.

I was going to file a nick in the make-and-break business but they’re too foxy to give me a file.

From Tom Slade on a Transport by Thomas Clarity

Besides this the make-and-break contacts on which the, ordinary battery bell depends for its operation are an objectionable feature from the standpoint of maintenance.

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

Both the high-tension spark plug and low-tension make-and-break systems had been in wide use for many years, with the latter constituting the majority in 1902.

From The Wright Brothers' Engines and Their Design by Leonard S. Hobbs

He made an automatic transmitter which could manipulate the make-and-break of the battery current far more rapidly than any human fingers could do.

From Autobiography of an Electron Wherein the Scientific Ideas of the Present Time Are Explained in an Interesting and Novel Fashion by Charles R. (Charles Robert) Gibson

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