Rotor
nounThe rotating part of a machine, such as the spinning blades of a helicopter or the turning element inside a motor or generator.
How to spell rotor
5 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce rotor
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does rotor mean?
- nounThe rotating part of a machine, such as the spinning blades of a helicopter or the turning element inside a motor or generator.
Rotor in a sentence
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The helicopter could not take off until the rotor reached full speed.
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A worn bearing made the electric motor's rotor wobble badly.
Where does rotor come from?
Language of origin: Latin
Rotor is a modern shortening of the Latin-derived word 'rotator', which described something that turns or revolves. The ultimate root is the Latin noun rota, meaning 'wheel', the same source that gives English 'rotate', 'rotary' and 'rotund'. Engineers coined the trimmed form 'rotor' in the early twentieth century as a tidy technical label for the spinning component of a machine, contrasting it with the fixed 'stator'. The clipped spelling, ending in a plain '-or' rather than the fuller '-ator', is exactly what trips writers up, since the familiar verb is 'rotate'. Because the word entered English as deliberate engineering jargon, its spelling stayed compact and consistent rather than drifting through French or older English forms.
How the word is built
- rot- (from Latin rota, wheel/turn)
- -or (agent/thing-that-does suffix); a shortening of 'rotator'
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