sempiternal, transponder

Op-Ed: Airplane Transponders

That was still true. His house was full of butane gas to light his sempiternal pipe, threatening an explosion.

sempiternal

Syllabification: sem·pi·ter·nal

Pronunciation: /ˌsempəˈtərnl

 

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adjective

• Eternal and unchanging; everlasting: his writings have the sempiternal youth of poetry

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  • I get the Bishop Berkeley idea that things only exist when God thinks about them; that God is not sempiternal but only exists when some people think about him is bizarre.
  • He knew they constituted the unbreakable and sempiternal circle.
  • There is throughout more than a hint of the Joycean conceit that this process is giratory and sempiternal, even though its temporal vector may be historically irreversible.
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Derivatives

sempiternally

adverb

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sempiternity

Pronunciation: /-ˈtərnitē/

noun

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Origin

late Middle English: from Old French sempiternel or late Latin sempiternalis, from Latin sempiternus, from semper 'always' + aeternus 'eternal'.

transponder

Syllabification: tran·spon·der

Pronunciation: /tranˈspändər

 

/[名]応答機, トラポン：信号を受けると自動的に応答を送る装置.

noun

• A device for receiving a radio signal and automatically transmitting a different signal.
  

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  • The line includes power supplies, transmitters, optical amplifiers, digital transponders, return-path receivers, fiber-node platforms and Ethernet access devices.
  • The transponder transmits this coded signal using the tuned circuit.
  • They captured these recruits as they left the hive, attached a radar transponder to them and then tracked their flight paths using harmonic radar.
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Origin

1940s: blend of transmit and respond, + -er¹.