propeller

[ pruh-pel-er ]

noun

1. a device having a revolving hub with radiating blades, for propelling an airplane, ship, etc.
2. a person or thing that propels.
3. the bladed rotor of a pump that drives the fluid axially.
4. a wind-driven, usually three-bladed, device that provides mechanical energy, as for driving an electric alternator in wind plants.

propeller

/ prəˈpɛlə /

noun

1. a device having blades radiating from a central hub that is rotated to produce thrust to propel a ship, aircraft, etc
2. a person or thing that propels

propeller

/ prə-pĕl′ər /

1. A device consisting of a set of two or more twisted, airfoil-shaped blades mounted around a shaft and spun to provide propulsion of a vehicle through water or air, or to cause fluid flow, as in a pump. The lift generated by the spinning blades provides the force that propels the vehicle or the fluid—the lift does not have to result in an actual upward force; its direction is simply parallel to the rotating shaft.

Word History and Origins

Origin of propeller¹

First recorded in 1770–80; propel + -er ¹

Example Sentences

Opportunities exist here mostly for component companies making better batteries, motors and quiet propellers.

From TechCrunch

A couple of hours later, I noticed that another propeller—not the one that had grabbed my daughter's hair—had fallen off entirely.

From Ars Technica

Then my five-year-old daughter somehow managed to get one of the propellers stuck in her hair.

From Ars Technica

Others use propellers—typically four of them—to pull themselves up into the sky, kind of like helicopters.

From Popular-Science

In a turbofan, the engine’s turbine drives a fan at the front of the engine, while in a turboprop it drives a propeller at the front of the engine.

From Singularity Hub 

Children have fantasy lives so rich and combustible that rigging them with lies is like putting a propeller on a rocket.

From The Daily Beast

“You think of something military, hostile, weaponized,” not the tiny four-propeller aircrafts used by hobbyists and researchers.

From The Daily Beast

The triangle is “like a rubber band wound up in a toy propeller,” Turner says.

From The Daily Beast

The propeller to be worked by this novel engine was of course his long-idle screw.

From Project Gutenberg

It was a fourteen-horse-power engine, water-cooled, and geared with a chain to the propeller.

From Project Gutenberg

The next moment the engine began to throb regularly, and the blades of the propeller whirled.

From Project Gutenberg

The big propeller-wings began to beat the air, and the sound rose to a keen buzzing.

From Project Gutenberg

Swift and straight she flew and suddenly Chet roared to Lance to shut down, and the propeller groaningly stopped.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• screw