carrier

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One that transports or conveys: baggage carriers; a message carrier.
2. n. One, such as a person, business, or organization, that deals in the transport of passengers or goods.
3. n. A mechanism or device by which something is conveyed or conducted.
4. n. Medicine A person or an animal that shows no symptoms of a disease but harbors the infectious agent of that disease and is capable of transmitting it to others.
5. n. Genetics An individual that carries one gene for a particular recessive trait. A carrier does not express the trait but, when mated with another carrier, can produce offspring that do.
6. n. Electronics A carrier wave.
7. n. Electronics A charge-carrying entity, especially an electron or a hole in a semiconductor.
8. n. An aircraft carrier.
9. n. An insurance or underwriting organization.
10. n. A telecommunications company.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One who or that which carries or conveys.
2. n. Specifically.
3. n. One who for hire undertakes the conveyance of goods or persons. The law distinguishes between common carriers and private or special carriers. One who carries not as a business, but only on occasion by special agreement, is termed a private or special carrier. One who holds himself out as a carrier, inviting the employment of the public generally, is a common carrier. He is bound to serve without favoritism all who desire to employ him, and is liable for the safety of goods intrusted to him, except by losses from the act of God or from public enemies, or unless special exemption has been agreed upon; and in respect to the safety of passengers carried he is liable for injuries which he might have prevented by special care. The most familiar classes of common carriers are railroad companies, stagecoach proprietors, expressmen, truckmen, ship-owners, steamboat-lines, lightermen, and ferrymen. The special rules of liability which the law, for reasons of public policy, imposes on common carriers have not been applied in their full extent to the business of drovers, owners of tow-boats, log-drivers, and others who do not literally carry the property intrusted to them; nor are telegraph companies deemed common carriers in respect to the messages they transmit.
4. n. A carrier-pigeon.
5. n. One who manages or arranges affairs.
6. n. In machinery: A piece of iron fixed by a setscrew on the end of a shaft or spindle to be turned in a lathe, or to a mandrel on which a round object is driven for the purpose of being turned; a lathe-dog. A projection in the center-chuck or face-plate drives the carrier around.
7. n. The distributing-roller of a carding-machine.
8. n. A roller between the drum and the feeding-rollers of a scribbling-machine, for spinning wool.
9. n. In a braiding-machine, a spool- or bobbin-holder which follows in a curved path intersecting the paths of other bobbins, and so lays up the thread into a braid.
10. n. A hoist, as the mold-carrier in sugar-works.
11. n. (f ) Part of the breech-action of a magazine-gun. See carrier-ring.
12. n. An oyster that will bear transportation well.
13. An old spelling of career.
14. n. In transportation, a system of endless traveling-chains supporting slats, trays, or buckets, used in transporting various materials or articles in bulk or in packages over short distances, as in a factory. The most simple or platform type consists of two chains supported by flanged wheels running upon rails at each side and carrying steel or wooden slats that form a moving platform on which the load is placed. See fig. 1. The traveling-side walk and the ramp are carriers of this type. Another form consists of a series of platform-trucks moving upon rails, the trucks being secured to a single chain which travels between the rails, hauling the trucks in either direction, carrying them round the wheel at the turn of the carrier (see wheel in fig. 1), and, when reversed, on the return trip. Other types have broad slats which lap one over another to prevent the material from falling between them. Buckets of various shapes are used in place of slate, either fixed to the chains or suspended from pivots on the chains and free to adjust themselves to changes in the travel from a horizontal to a vertical direction. The buckets, when moving in a horizontal direction, overlap to form a continuous series, and are of various shapes to prevent the spilling of the load when changing direction of travel. This is clearly shown in fig. 2, where the loaded buckets are seen moving in three different directions between the feeding-point and the point of discharge. This use of pivoted buckets allies the carrier to both the conveyer and the elevator, and makes it possible to use one system or machine as a conveyer in a horizontal direction and as an elevator in a vertical direction. In one type of bucket-carrier, used in handling coal, the buckets are provided with a hinged bottom for convenience in unloading and a tipping device causing each bucket to open and discharge its load at any desired point. All types of carriers are fed at intervals or continuously, and by hand or by means of automatic feeders, and all are automatic unloaders or are fitted with tripping and discharging appliances. See fig. 2. Carriers are given, various names, as apron-carrier, pivoted bucket-carrier, slat-carrier, etc. See conveyer, *elevator, *ramp, *feeder, and *discharger.

Wiktionary

1. n. A person or object that carries someone or something else.
2. n. A carrier pigeon, a newspaperese term (misnomer) for a homing pigeon, racing pigeon, racing homer, homer.
3. n. An Old English carrier pigeon or Old English carrier (the "King of the Doos").
4. n. A person or company in the business of shipping freight.
5. n. A person or animal that transmits a disease to others without itself contracting the disease.
6. n. A signal such as radio, sound, or light that is modulated to transmit information.
7. n. A mobile network operator; wireless carrier.
8. n. An inert material added to an active ingredient to aid in the application and/or the effectiveness of active ingredient.
9. n. A certified airline.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who, or that which, carries or conveys; a messenger.
2. n. One who is employed, or makes it his business, to carry goods for others for hire; a porter; a teamster.
3. n. (Mach.) That which drives or carries; as: (a) A piece which communicates to an object in a lathe the motion of the face plate; a lathe dog. (b) A spool holder or bobbin holder in a braiding machine. (c) A movable piece in magazine guns which transfers the cartridge to a position from which it can be thrust into the barrel.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a self-propelled wheeled vehicle designed specifically to carry something
2. n. a boy who delivers newspapers
3. n. a radio wave that can be modulated in order to transmit a signal
4. n. (medicine) a person (or animal) who has some pathogen to which he is immune but who can pass it on to others
5. n. someone whose employment involves carrying something
6. n. a large warship that carries planes and has a long flat deck for takeoffs and landings
7. n. a rack attached to a vehicle; for carrying luggage or skis or the like
8. n. an inactive substance that is a vehicle for a radioactive tracer of the same substance and that assists in its recovery after some chemical reaction
9. n. a man who delivers the mail
10. n. a person or firm in the business of transporting people or goods or messages
11. n. (genetics) an organism that possesses a recessive gene whose effect is masked by a dominant allele; the associated trait is not apparent but can be passed on to offspring