resistor
Americannoun
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resistors
plural
noun
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A device used in electrical circuits to maintain a constant relation between current flow and voltage. Resistors are used to step up or lower the voltage at different points in a circuit and to transform a current signal into a voltage signal or vice versa, among other uses. The electrical behavior of a resistor obeys Ohm's law for a constant resistance; however, some resistors are sensitive to heat, light, or other variables.
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◆ Variable resistors, or rheostats, have a resistance that may be varied across a certain range, usually by means of a mechanical device that alters the position of one terminal of the resistor along a strip of resistant material. The length of the intervening material determines the resistance. Mechanical variable resistors are also called potentiometers, and are used in the volume knobs of audio equipment and in many other devices.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of resistor
Vocabulary lists containing resistor
Electricity and Magnetism - Introductory
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Physics - Introductory
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Physical Science - Energy - Middle School
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Example Sentences
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Using these materials, the team created a memory resistor, known as a "memristor," that operates with very little energy.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
Once in the late 1950s, while building machinery to record sounds a heart makes, he accidentally used the wrong resistor, but its electrical pulse rate was steady, like a heartbeat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 4, 2026
A temperature-dependent resistor, or thermistor, senses the temperature, which controls the smell’s intensity.
From Scientific American ● May 9, 2023
The business, then called Kyoto Ceramic Company, got its first big break when it received an order to make resistor rods for the Apollo space program.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2022
He charms the druggist’s wife into giving him a broken earphone; he salvages a solenoid from a discarded doorbell, solders it to a resistor, and makes a loudspeaker.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
These objects are juxtaposed alongside digital detritus — circuit boards, resistors — that line the wooden boxes like wallpaper.
From New York Times ● May 8, 2024
In an interview with Al Jazeera, he said "not a single bullet" had been fired - because "there are no resistors or detainees" inside.
From BBC ● Nov. 15, 2023
Another theory suggests that, in the photograph, Yang was alluding to Chinese resistors during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 2, 2023
It goes on to describe intelligence shared by an Enbridge employee, detailing the movements of various groups of pipeline resistors.
From Salon ● Feb. 19, 2023
Getting the voltage right was a simple matter of adding resistors, which my electronics kit has in abundance.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
