Also erron. -tor. [f. CONVERT v. + -ER1.]
1. One who converts (another) to any faith, opinion, or party; one who makes converts.
1570–6. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 2. The messengers of Pope Gregorye (that were converters of the people).
1652. Sparke, Prim. Devot. (1663), 510. He became a converter of the gentiles.
1726. Cavallier, Mem., I. 3. These unmerciful Converters began with ravaging and destroying all that the Protestants had in their Houses.
1838. Pusey (title), The Church the Converter of the Heathen.
2. One who converts or changes one thing into another; one who turns a thing to another purpose or to his own use.
1533. Tindale, Supper of Lord, Wks. III. 261. Let our covetous converters chop and change bread and wine, till we there feel, see, and taste neither bread nor wine.
1687. N. Johnston, Assur. Abbey Lands, 26. A converter of Ecclesiastical Mony to his own use.
1825. New Monthly Mag., XIII. 510. Modern converters of field sports into butcheries.
b. spec. (a) One whose business it is to ‘convert’ rough timber: see CONVERT v. 12 b. (b) One whose business it is to convert iron into steel.
1811. Naval Chron., XXV. 88. One of the timber-convertors of the dock-yard.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 898. Réaumur … first [brought] the process of conversion to any degree of perfection … The first principles laid down by him are now the guide of the converter.
1881. Mechanic, § 198. Buyers and converters of all kinds of English timber.
3. An apparatus for converting one thing into another.
1889. Nature, 24 Oct., 631. A vessel, called a converter … whose use is to permit the water to resolve itself into steam.
b. Steel Manuf. A large vessel or retort, made of iron and lined with some refractory material (usually a kind of siliceous stone called ganister), in which molten pig-iron is converted into steel by the Bessemer and other processes: see BESSEMER.
1867. Morn. Star, 20 Sept., 7. The converters can thus be worked with liquid iron direct from the blast furnaces, the iron remaining perfectly liquid during the short time of transit.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Aug., 334/2. The Bessemer [process] … decarbonizes melted iron in huge converters by forcing an air stream through it.
c. Electric Lighting. An apparatus for converting high-tension into low-tension electricity.
1889. Pall Mall G., 25 Jan., 6/1. The mains are underground, and … the current generated is of high tension. At each house lighted, the current is changed into low tension by means of converters.
1890. C. W. Vincent, in 19th Cent., Jan., 147. In electric lighting, induction coils of converse construction are employed, the primary coil being of fine wire, and the secondary or induction coil of the thicker wire. These coils convert high-tension into low-tension electricity, and under the name of ‘converters’ are already in use in several electric lighting systems.
