turbine

Definitions

From Latin turbo (whirlwind, spinning top), a sibling of turbāre (stir up). A whirlwind is air stirred into a spiral, so the root carries the sense of spinning motion. A turbine captures that idea as a machine: a wheel made to spin by a stream of fluid, turning swirling force into usable power.

Why It Means This

It's striking that a word for orderly, productive machinery grows from a root all about chaos. The bridge is the whirlwind: Latin turbo described spinning, swirling air — disorder, yes, but disorder with energy. Engineers took the spinning and tamed it, building a wheel that a flow of fluid could turn. So a wind turbine is, at root, a captured whirlwind put to work.

Common Collocations

• 1.wind turbine风力涡轮机
• 2.steam turbine蒸汽轮机
• 3.gas turbine燃气轮机
• 4.turbine blade涡轮叶片

Example Sentences

• 1.

  The wind farm has over fifty turbines spinning along the ridge.

• 2.

  Engineers shut down the turbine to replace a cracked blade.

• 3.

  Water rushing through the dam drives the turbines that generate electricity.