[f. TRANSMIT v. + -ER1.] One who or that which transmits.
1727. Savage, Bastard, 8. He lives to build, not boast a generous Race: No Tenth Transmitter of a foolish Face.
1775. Johnson, Tax. no Tyr., 73. The transmitters of wrong.
1822. New Monthly Mag., V. 417. [Not] the inventor, but merely the ‘transmitter’ of a jest.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1892), II. i. 6. The great bulk of mankind are transmitters rather than originators of spiritual force.
1904. Brit. Med. Jrnl., 17 Sept., 672. The stogomyia fasciata (the transmitter of yellow fever).
b. spec. That part of a telegraphic or telephonic apparatus by means of which messages are transmitted or dispatched; a transmitting instrument: opposed to RECEIVER 7.
Also, the part of a stethoscope that transmits the sounds to the ear of the operator (quot. 1901).
1876. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 251. The chief faults which are met with in the Transmitter are broken spiral springs and chains, or loose adjusting screws.
1878. G. B. Prescott, Sp. Telephone (1879), 9. The tone transmitter … connected by a metallic conductor with the tone receiver … at the distant station.
1888. Pall Mall G., 30 May, 11/2. The operator sits watching at his transmitter on the Downs, while another attends in breathless expectation at the instrument in the Haymarket.
1889. Preece & Maier, Telephone, 5. The transmitter is the instrument into which the words are spoken.
1901. Munsey’s Mag., XXIV. 522/2. Dr. Schmuetzer placed the stethoscope over his heart,… with the rubber transmitters stuck in his ears.
1902. Sloane, Electr. Dict., Transmitter, in general electric phraseology, any instrument which produces signals to be transmitted through a line or circuit…. Thus the Morse key in telegraphy or the Blake transmitter in telephony are examples.
c. attrib.
1876. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 129. Fig. 90 … contains a plan of the transmitter switch.
1892. Pall Mall G., 27 April, 7/2. A phonoporic receiver will not be actuated by impulses whose speed is regulated by a transmitter reed tuned to a different note from its own.
1904. Electr. World & Engin., 21 May, 987. To overcome this difficulty [of being overheard by persons near] a transmitter hood has been patented. This is a metallic box adapted to be fastened upon the transmitter.
