Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that detects, especially a mechanical, electrical, or chemical device that automatically identifies and records or registers a stimulus, such as an environmental change in pressure or temperature, an electric signal, or radiation from a radioactive material.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who or that which detects or brings to light; one who finds out what another attempts to conceal; a revealer; a discoverer.
  • noun An instrument or a device for indicating the presence or state of a thing.
  • noun Sometimes written detecter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who, or that which, detects; a detecter.
  • noun An indicator showing the depth of the water in a boiler.
  • noun (Elec.) A galvanometer, usually portable, for indicating the direction of a current.
  • noun (Elec.) Any of various devices for detecting the presence of electric waves.
  • noun a publication containing a description of genuine and counterfeit bank notes, designed to enable persons to discriminate between them.
  • noun See under Lock.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A device capable of registering a specific substance or physical phenomenon.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun electronic equipment that detects the presence of radio signals or radioactivity
  • noun any device that receives a signal or stimulus (as heat or pressure or light or motion etc.) and responds to it in a distinctive manner
  • noun rectifier that extracts modulation from a radio carrier wave

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From detect +‎ -or (“agent noun forming suffix”).

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