thruster

noun

thrust·​er ˈthrə-stər 

variants or less commonly thrustor

: one that thrusts

especially : an engine (such as a jet engine) that develops thrust by expelling a jet of fluid or a stream of particles

Examples of thruster in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This included the landing gear failed to deploy, along with reverse thrusters, which redirect engine thrust forward and are crucial for braking. —Khaleda Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Oct. 2025

Nearly all of its hardware is built in-house, with only solar arrays and thrusters outsourced. —Andrew Jones, Space.com, 16 Oct. 2025

Ground station crews that today coordinate elegant sequences of thruster burns will face more chaotic obstacle courses and bigger debris fields blooming across their display monitors. —IEEE Spectrum, 30 Sep. 2025

The same Luch/Olymp satellite then fired its thrusters to begin drifting to another slot thousands of miles away to sidle up next to another Intelsat bird named Intelsat 39. —Benj Edwards, ArsTechnica, 25 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1597, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for thruster

• bluster
• buster
• cluster
• duster
• juster
• luster
• lustre
• muster
• trustor
• adjuster
• baluster
• blockbuster

Kids Definition

thruster

noun

thrust·​er ˈthrəs-tər 

: one that thrusts

especially : an engine that produces thrust by discharging a jet of fluid or a stream of particles