repeater

[ ri-pee-ter ]

noun

1. a person or thing that repeats.
2. a repeating firearm.
3. Horology. a timepiece, especially a watch, that may be made to strike the hour or part of the hour. Compare clock watch.
4. Education. a student who repeats a course or group of courses that they have failed.
5. a person who votes illegally by casting more than one vote in the same election.
6. a person who has been convicted and sentenced for one crime, and later for another; recidivist.
7. Mathematics. (no longer in technical use) a repeating decimal.
8. Telecommunications. a device capable of receiving one-way or two-way communications signals and delivering corresponding signals that are either amplified, reshaped, or both.
9. Navigation. gyro repeater.

repeater

/ rɪˈpiːtə /

noun

1. a person or thing that repeats
2. Also calledrepeating firearm a firearm capable of discharging several shots without reloading
3. a timepiece having a mechanism enabling it to strike the hour or quarter-hour just past, when a spring is pressed
4. electrical engineering a device that amplifies or augments incoming electrical signals and retransmits them, thus compensating for transmission losses
5. Also calledsubstitute nautical one of three signal flags hoisted with others to indicate that one of the top three is to be repeated

Other Words From

• non·re·peat·er noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of repeater¹

First recorded in 1570–80; repeat + -er ¹

Example Sentences

A quantum network cannot use standard optical-fiber signal repeaters because copying of arbitrary quantum information is impossible -- making the information secure, but also very hard to transport over long distances.

From Science Daily

The report says a repeater enabled radio communications to stay up despite cell towers and fiber-optic cable damage taking down the cellular network, but they were overwhelmed due to “a variety” of unspecified reasons.

From Seattle Times

To combat this, these systems use 'repeaters' at regular points, which read and re-amplify the signal, ensuring it gets to its destination intact.

From Science Daily

QR codes are used to activate connections to Egyptian or Israeli repeaters, since those in Gaza have been destroyed.

From Salon

But to work across the distances astronomers want will require repeaters that preserve quantum states, a technology that is still experimental.

From Science Magazine

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