carburetor

car·bu·re·tor | \ ˈkär-bə-ˌrā-tər

How to pronounce carburetor (audio)

, -byə- \

Definition of carburetor

: a mechanical apparatus for premixing vaporized fuel and air in proper proportions and supplying the mixture to an internal combustion engine

Examples of carburetor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Old gas will clog fuel lines, gum up the carburetor, and prevent the engine from starting. — Joseph Truini, Popular Mechanics, "How To Store Small Engines for the Winter," 9 Dec. 2019 The carburetor on your car, in contrast, is the technological equivalent of pouring gasoline into the cylinders from a paint can. — Ray Magliozzi, courant.com, "Car Talk: Honda is whistling a different kind of tune," 18 Nov. 2019 With some replacement parts for those classics becoming hard to come by or prohibitively expensive, the system also frees owners from having to track down, say, a period-correct carburetor to keep their baby running. — New York Times, "Out: M.P.G. In: Kilowatt-Hours. Classic Cars Get an Electric Jolt.," 12 Dec. 2019 In the old days when cars were carbureted — the 1970s and earlier — all carburetors had something called a float bowl. — Ray Magliozzi, courant.com, "Car Talk: Neighbor revved up over Mustang owner’s late night habit," 20 Oct. 2019 Most will take regular gasoline, though Hildebrand favors a product called TruFuel, which doesn’t have any ethanol or other additives that eat away a carburetor over time. — Rachel Swan, SFChronicle.com, "Everyone is buying generators to get through PG&E outages. Here’s what you need to know," 1 Nov. 2019 The float bowl is where the gasoline was stored inside the carburetor while waiting to be released into the cylinders. — Ray Magliozzi, courant.com, "Car Talk: Neighbor revved up over Mustang owner’s late night habit," 20 Oct. 2019 Brauer notes the shift from carburetors to fuel injectors made for simpler mechanics—and fewer hours of work on each vehicle. — Wired, "The Shift to Electric Vehicles Propels a Strike Against GM," 17 Sep. 2019 Darden had grown up helping her father change tires on the family car and prime the carburetor. — Los Angeles Times, "How the women of NASA made their mark on the space program," 16 July 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'carburetor.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Keep scrolling for more

Learn More about carburetor

Dictionary Entries near carburetor

carbureted hydrogen

carbureted water gas

Statistics for carburetor

Last Updated

6 Jan 2020

Cite this Entry

“Carburetor.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carburetor. Accessed 19 January 2020.

Keep scrolling for more

Keep scrolling for more

WORD OF THE DAY

intercalate

to insert between existing elements

Test Your Vocabulary

The Eponym Quiz

Which is the best synonym of bowdlerize?

Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words?

Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way.