piston

¹

[ pis-tuhn ]

noun

1. a disk or cylindrical part tightly fitting and moving within a cylinder, either to compress or move a fluid collected in the cylinder, as air or water, or to transform energy imparted by a fluid entering or expanding inside the cylinder, as compressed air, explosive gases, or steam, into a rectilinear motion usually transformed into rotary motion by means of a connecting rod.
2. a pumplike valve used to change the pitch in a cornet or the like.

Piston

²

[ pis-tuhn ]

noun

1. Walter, 1894–1976, U.S. composer.

piston

/ ˈpɪstən /

noun

1. a disc or cylindrical part that slides to and fro in a hollow cylinder. In an internal-combustion engine it is forced to move by the expanding gases in the cylinder head and is attached by a pivoted connecting rod to a crankshaft or flywheel, thus converting reciprocating motion into rotation

piston

/ pĭs′tən /

1. A solid cylinder or disk that fits snugly into a hollow cylinder and moves back and forth under the pressure of a fluid (typically a hot gas formed by combustion, as in many engines), or moves or compresses a fluid, as in a pump or compressor.

Other Words From

• piston·like adjective
• sub·piston noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of piston¹

First recorded in 1695–1705; from French, from Italian pistone “piston,” a learned alteration of pestone “large pestle,” equivalent to pest(are) “to pound” (variant of Medieval Latin pistare, derivative of Latin pīstus, past participle of pīnsere “to pound, crush”) + -one augmentative suffix

Word History and Origins

Origin of piston¹

C18: via French from Old Italian pistone, from pistare to pound, grind, from Latin pinsere to crush, beat

Example Sentences

If the workings of his engine were carefully concealed, you could see the pistons pumping and sparks flying when Nadal took to court.

From BBC

Many past attempts have featured metal rods inserted into lava, pushed by hand or by spring-loaded piston, or even fired into the lava like a spear, to estimate the viscosity of the flow.

From Science Daily

"I paid £250 for a diagnostics test. It turned out a diesel piston had gone and if it wasn't fixed it would damage the car further," she said.

From BBC

“The source is like a piston,” says Adam Szabo, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and principal investigator for the magnetometer.

From Science Magazine

The piston cores were taken inside pockmarks and at background sites adjacent to but outside of the pockmarks for comparison.

From Science Daily

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