piston

UK/ˈpɪstən/US/ˈpɪstən/

nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,755 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: pistons

A piston is the plug that slides up and down inside a cylinder. A piston ring, four pistons, the piston seized.

In an engine the burning gas pushes it down and the crankshaft turns that into rotation. The rings around it do the sealing, not the piston itself, and it never quite touches the cylinder wall — a film of oil carries it.

Definitions of piston

1nounpistonThe plug that slides up and down inside a cylinder.B2+
“The engine lost power because one of the pistons was damaged.”

piston is a part.

Where it comes from

French
piston
English, today
piston

Borrowed from French piston.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Vehicles & Machines

Practise this word

piston in the wild

The compression ratio is the ratio between the maximum and minimum volume during the compression stage of the power cycle in a piston or Wankel engine.
Compression ratio
A piston is a component of reciprocating engines, reciprocating pumps, gas compressors, hydraulic cylinders and pneumatic cylinders, among other similar mechanisms.
Piston
Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many small UAVs have used electric motors.
Aircraft engine
A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either direction.
Four-stroke engine
In this stroke the piston compresses the air-fuel mixture in preparation for ignition during the power stroke (below).
Four-stroke engine

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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