sensor

UK/ˈsɛn.sə/US/ˈsɛn.sɚ/

nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — sensory sits at #8,115leans writtentechnical · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: sensors

A sensor is a small device that notices something and reports it. The one that switches a light on when you walk into a car park.

Sensors are everywhere once you start counting: the one in a phone that dims the screen against your ear, the smoke sensor in a hallway, the reversing sensors that beep as a car nears a wall. Each is named for what it detects — a motion sensor, a heat sensor, a pressure sensor. The word sits close to detector and is often interchangeable, though detector wins where the thing being found is dangerous. Do not confuse it with censor, which is a person who cuts things out.

Definitions of sensor

1nounsensorA device that detects heat, light, movement or another physical change and signals it.B2
“A sensor switches the lights on when someone enters.”
synonyms: detector

Where it comes from

Originated 1925–30, formed as a Latin - loanword from sentiō + -tor. by surface analysis, sense + -or.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

sensor in the wild

A sensor is often defined as a device that receives and responds to a signal or stimulus.
Sensor
Analog sensors such as potentiometers and force-sensing resistors are still widely used.
Sensor
Hall sensors are used for proximity sensing, positioning, speed detection, and current sensing applications and are common in industrial and consumer applications.
Hall effect sensor
Hundreds of millions of Hall sensor integrated circuits (ICs) are sold each year by about 50 manufacturers, with the global market being valued at around a billion dollars.
Hall effect sensor
The newest technologies use low-cost, uncooled microbolometers as FPA sensors.
Thermography

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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.

Related words

sensory

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