| 释义 |
Westinghouse|ˈwɛstɪŋhaʊs|
The name of George Westinghouse (1846–1914), U.S. inventor and manufacturer, used attrib. and absol. to designate a kind of air brake he invented in 1868 for use on railway trains, operated by compressed air on a fail-safe principle.
a1877Knight Dict. Mech. I. 356/1 The Westinghouse Atmospheric Brake..was patented in 1869, and has been adopted on many railway lines in the United States and Europe. 1886Encycl. Brit. XX. 248/2 The Westinghouse brake was greatly in advance of previously existing systems. 1933Times Lit. Suppl. 2 Nov. 738/3 Many will regret the gradual abandonment of the Westinghouse brake on steam-hauled trains. 1949D. M. Davin Roads from Home i. v. 75, I jammed on the Westinghouse, saying to myself I'd look a fine bloody fool if I'd stopped the train for nothing. 1967G. F. Fiennes I tried to run a Railway iv. 40 Only the Stratford District had kept the Westinghouse brake.
Hence Westingˈhousian a. (fig. nonce-use).
1948V. Nabokov in New Yorker 31 July 20/1 The train stopped with a long-drawn Westinghousian sigh. |