Civil Engineering. an airtight chamber permitting passage to or from a space, as in a caisson, in which the air is kept under pressure.
the impedance in the functioning of a pump or a system of piping caused by the presence of an air bubble; vapor lock.
First recorded in 1855–60
First recorded in 1855–60
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Customers still experiencing ongoing problems as isolated issues were likely to be affected by an air lock, SWW said, and those affected should contact it.
From BBC ● Apr. 23, 2025
Demond pushed his way through a double-door air lock and into a series of chilly storerooms.
From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2023
After a hose from a ceiling pipe is connected to a valve on his suit — “you inflate like the Michelin Man,” he said — he passes through an air lock and into his lab.
From New York Times ● Nov. 23, 2021
It deflated enough to allow Mr. Leonov to enter the capsule’s air lock headfirst, but the change in pressure left him at risk of decompression sickness.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 12, 2019
The air lock was made entirely of stainless steel, and it was lined with nozzles for spraying water and chemicals.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
He had to film a few moments of footage in which Roy emerges from an air-lock door and leaps into open space—the lead-in to the climax of the film.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 9, 2019
It was something more than an extension of the newspaper: for some a home from home, for others an air-lock between the desk and suburbia.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 2, 2019
There were also the air-lock steel doors that swung open, saloon-style, dozens of times a day, as miners in mantrips crossed over the primary tunnel providing fresh air.
From New York Times ● Apr. 23, 2010
Bob Moores, a Black & Decker engineer who helped design a lunar-surface drill for the Apollo program, mated one of his company's drills with an ingenious air-lock seal.
From Time Magazine Archive
He ran down the hall to the air-lock door, where a soldier was stationed with a short-wave radio.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
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.
