ppl. a. That condenses.
1. Chiefly in names of machines, mechanical apparatus, etc., forming virtual compounds (sometimes hyphened), in which it blends with the vbl. sb. used attrib. (= ‘for condensing’), as condensing coil, glass, lens, pan, syringe, valve.
1787. G. Adams, Ess. Microscope, 84. There is also a condensing glass to the stage. Ibid. The tube with the condensing lense.
c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Arts, I. 189. The valve that admits the steam from the … cylinder into the condenser, called the condensing valve.
1816. J. Smith, Panorama Sc. & Art, II. 25. The condensing syringe.
1835. Ure, Philos. Manuf., 349. A little tributary stream of the Mersey … supplies the condensing power to his steam-engines.
1865. Wansbrough, Specif. of Patent, No 1545. Condensing pans employed in the condensation of milk.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Condensing-lens, a plano-convex … or double convex lens, to concentrate rays upon an opaque microscopic object.
b. Condensing engine: † (a) an apparatus for condensing air, or compressing it into smaller space (obs.); (b) a steam-engine in which the steam is condensed in a CONDENSER (sense 4 b), or (formerly, as in Newcomen’s engine) by injection of water into the cylinder.
1752. Smeaton, Air-pump, in Phil. Trans., XLVII. 422. Making this air-pump act as a condensing engine at pleasure.
1807. Hutton, Course Math., II. 239. The Condensing Engine, by which air may be condensed to any degree, instead of rarefied as in the air-pump.
1824. R. Stuart, Hist. Steam Engine. The power of the condensing Engine is … known by ascertaining the temperature of the steam, which moves the piston, the area of the piston, and the temperature of the vapour which remains.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Condensing-engine, one in which the steam below or in advance of the piston is condensed.
2. intr. Growing dense, thickening (like a dense cloud, etc.). rare–1.
1749. Johnson, Irene, II. iv. Like the dread stilness of condensing storms.
