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propagator|ˈprɒpəgeɪtə(r)|
[a. L. prō-, propāgātor, agent-n. from prō̆pāgāre to propagate: so F. propagateur (1516 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
One who or that which propagates.
1. a. One who begets or produces offspring.
1686Goad Celest. Bodies i. ix. 32 [They] must needs depend on some prime Propagator, as all Families do. 1711Addison Spect. No. 203 ⁋7 Were I to propose a Punishment for this infamous Race of Propagators, it should be to send them..into our American Colonies..to people those Parts..where there is a want of Inhabitants.
b. A planter; a rearer of plants.
1669Worlidge Agric. (1681) 330 Propagator, a Planter.
c. A forcing-frame for plants; a propagating-house. Also, a small box with a transparent lid and a base that can be heated, for germinating seeds or raising seedlings.
1885Bazaar 30 Mar. 1254/2 A well made propagator, zinc, can be heated with gas or oil lamp, very useful for raising flower seeds or striking cuttings. 1914W. F. Rowles Garden under Glass i. 16 The propagator itself may consist of a box..covered by loose sheets of glass. 1950E. J. King Propagation of Plants iii. 29 A propagator is a small frame built inside a heated greenhouse in such a way as to give even higher temperatures than those in the main part of the house. 1971Daily Tel. 13 Feb. 7/3 A week or two lost in raising seeds in a heated greenhouse, or electric propagator in the home, is not a matter of extreme urgency. 1976Abingdon Herald 9 Dec. 5/2 A small propagator..enables one to raise seeds at any time. 1979Garden CIV (Advt.), Humex Mono-top Propagator. Pick of the bunch—the electrically heated propatray base surmounted by an..enclosure with sliding doors for easy access.
d. The male copulative organ; the penis. Now arch.
1670J. Ogilby Africa 451 Lastly, they have little Bellies, broad Feet, long Toes, and furnish'd, as most of the Blacks upon the Guinee Coast, with large Propagators. 1971Black Scholar June 12/1 Setting foot on the shores of West Africa in 1550, the Englishman was struck by the African's religion..and his ‘Propagator’, which he perceived monstrous.
2. fig. One who spreads abroad, disseminates, or diffuses (a statement, opinion, practice, etc.).
1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 52 The propagator of true Religion. 1664H. More Myst. Iniq. 283 The Propagators of the worship of the Baalim. 1790Burke Fr. Rev. 167 These writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great zeal for the poor and the lower orders. 1812Ld. Ellenborough in Examiner 28 Dec. 832/2 The defendant was not proved to be the institutor, but only the propagator, of the libel. 1867Freeman Norm. Conq. I. vi. 455 A zealous propagator of Christianity.
3. Physics. An algebraic function that is taken as representing the propagation of a particle on the sub-atomic scale, esp. between its space-time points of creation and annihilation.
1951Physical Rev. LXXXIV. 1233/1 G′ (1,2), the ‘quantum propagator’, is a function of (xµ1xµ3) not containing any Dirac operators. 1958Ibid. CXII. 1417/1 A coincidence arrangement appears capable of testing the electron propagator at distances approaching the nucleon Compton wavelength, which is comparable with our present limit on the photon propagator. 1973J. A. Reissland Physics of Photons vi. 186 If the effect of a perturbation H′(t) is to create a particle at position r′ at time t′, the function (6.19) traces the propagation of that particle until it is removed at r at a time t. Hence the term ‘propagator’ for the one-particle Green's function G(r,t; r′,t′) ≡ iη(t-t′)+ (r′,t′> where a+(r′,t′) creates a particle at r′,t′ and a(r,t) destroys it at (r,t). 1974Physics Bull. May 191/2 Propagators (or Green's functions) have been much used by physicists.
Hence ˈpropagatress, propaˈgatrix, a female propagator.
1653R. Baillie Dissuas. Vind. (1655) 24 That heresie for its great and prime propogatrix had Mistresse Hutcheson. 1660Howell Parly of Beasts 89 The prime Propagatresse of Religion and Learning. 1803Edin. Rev. I. 498 This industrious propagatrix of the species. |