air braken.
/ˈɛː breɪk/, U.S. /ˈɛr ˌbreɪk/ 1. A brake operated by the pressure of compressed air.
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society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > vehicles according to means of motion > vehicle moving on wheels > [noun] > parts of vehicle moving on wheels > devices to retard or stop motion > brake or braking apparatus > types of
handbrake1841
rubber1850
air brake1857
disc brake1865
power brake1865
hydraulic brake1874
vacuum-brake1875
rim brake1876
drum brake1882
sand brakea1884
calliper brake1904
rheostatic brake1920
callipers1972
1857 Sci. Amer. 5 Sept. 414/3 (heading) Air brake for [railroad] cars.
1869 Evening Gaz. (Port Jervis, N.Y.) 11 Sept. 1/1 Messrs. Gould and Fisk have..arranged..to have air brakes attached to their engines.
1921 Amer. Legion Weekly 26 Aug. 20/2 Of all the devices essential in the operation of railroads there is none of greater importance than the air brake.
1947 Reader's Digest Sept. 135/2 A train which travels 1500 feet after the air brakes are applied could be brought to a stop in 375 feet.
1971 Railway World Mar. 127 Someone in High Office..gave orders that motormen should count ten between releasing the air brakes and re-applying power.
1998 I. Rankin Hanging Garden (1999) xxxiv. 373 They heard the truck before they saw it: changing gears noisily... A wheeze of air-brakes as it jolted to a stop at the gates.
2. A flap or other device on the wing of an aircraft that can be raised or lowered in order to decrease the aircraft's speed. Also in extended use.
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1914 Aeronaut. Jrnl. July 228 Air brakes..must not tend to produce any upsetting effect on the machine.
1928 C. F. S. Gamble Story N. Sea Air Station xiii. 210 Fitted with an air-brake in the form of adjustable flaps in the trailing edge of the lower plane adjacent to the fuselage.
1946 Amer. Midland Naturalist 35 624 Another major use of the tail is as an airbrake when the bird comes in for a landing.
1966 Science 8 July 203/2 The bat does not flutter his wings.., but uses them in a half-folded position as air brakes to limit his velocity during the dive.
1991 Pilot Nov. 66/1 All too soon I had to think about landing. With virtually no wind I had plenty of time to settle myself down on a long final, using only half airbrakes.
2007 AAP Newsfeed (Nexis) 12 Mar. The air brakes were up but I saw the airport building passing by in a flash.
Derivatives
ˈair-braked adj. fitted with air brakes (sense 1).
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society > travel > rail travel > rolling stock > [adjective] > type of train
carriaged1776
steam-hauled1835
steam-operated1835
jerkwater1852
articulated1884
vestibuled1890
multiple-unit1902
air-braked1905
collision-proof1906
pull-and-push1914
push-and-pull1927
sealed1949
drive-on1954
1905 Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland) 16 May 5/1 Recent accidents..when emergency applications of air have been made on trains partially air-braked, have demonstrated that such trains are not actually under the control of the engineer.
1952 Jrnl. Inst. Locomotive Engineers 42 ii. 151 The corresponding figure for air loss for air braked trains was 50 cubic feet of free air per hour.
1997 Rail 12 Mar. 69/1 There was no other air-braked locomotive on hand other than the ‘Deltic’ at the head of the 0800 ‘Talisman’ to Edinburgh.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1857