cycler

English

Etymology 1

cycle + -er

Noun

cycler (plural cyclers)

  1. Anything with a cyclic (repetitious) behaviour. Something that cycles between different states.
    The battery cycler allows us to switch between batteries as each one runs out.
  2. (astronomy) An orbit that approaches two astronomical bodies on a regular basis.
    The Earth-Mars cyclers could potentially be used for transporting people between the two planets.
  3. (astronautics, by extension) A, usually man-made, object that follows such an orbit.
    Hyponyms: Aldrin cycler, Hollister cycler
    If we had more than one cycler then the length of time between the outbound and inbound journeys could be reduced to a few months.
  4. (psychology, euphemistic) A person with bipolar disorder, often used when comparing the speed of mood swings.
    My son's a fast cycler which is much harder for people to understand.
  5. (medicine) A device for performing dialysis; for mechanically purifying blood.
    The only issue I have had with my cycler was when the cat started chewing on the connecting line.
  6. (biochemistry) Ellipsis of thermal cycler.; a machine for creating multiple copies of DNA sequences.
    We took samples from the tubes in the cycler at regular intervals
  7. (computing) A task in a cycle of tasks where the status of being active task is passed around the loop.
    When the last cycler has run for 200ms we pass control back to the first one and begin again.
Derived terms

Etymology 2

(bi)cycle + -er

Noun

cycler (plural cyclers)

  1. (dated) cyclist
    There is nothing more annoying than a rogue cycler ignoring the other road users.

Further reading

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