Other forms: generators
A generator is a machine that makes electricity when the mains fail. A backup generator, run the generator, a diesel generator.
It does not create the energy: it turns motion into electricity by spinning a magnet past a coil, and the fuel supplies the motion. Hospitals test theirs regularly because the failure mode is discovering it does not start. Note generate, from the Latin for begetting.
1noungeneratorA machine that makes electricity.
“We took a small generator on the camping trip to charge our phones.”
generator is a machine.
Latin generator comes from generare, to beget, from genus, a kind. Gene and genus come from the same begetting.
Built from
From Latin -, from past participle of genero (“beget, father”), equivalent to generate + -or.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA