Piston

How to spell piston

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce piston

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does piston mean?

1. nounA solid cylinder or disc that slides up and down tightly inside a tube, transferring pressure in an engine, pump, or similar machine.

Piston in a sentence

• The mechanic found that one piston was worn and needed replacing.

• Each piston moves up and down inside its cylinder as the engine runs.

Where does piston come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the early 1700s from the French piston, which was borrowed in turn from the Italian pistone, meaning a large pestle or rammer. The Italian word grew out of the verb pistare, 'to pound or to crush', which traces back to the Latin pinsere, meaning 'to pound, beat, or grind'. The same Latin root gives us 'pestle', the tool used to crush things in a mortar, and that family resemblance makes sense once you picture a piston ramming up and down inside its cylinder. As steam engines and later combustion engines developed, the word settled firmly into mechanical English to name the snug-fitting plunger that transmits force. The spelling stays simple and phonetic, which is why it rarely trips writers up.

How the word is built

• pist- (from Latin pinsere/pistare: to pound, crush)
• -on (noun suffix, augmentative via Italian/French)