Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
A device that generates a beam that repels other objects; or the beam itself.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: literature, media, publishing, science-fiction
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From press + -or and beam. Analogous to "presser beam", a beam that presses, as the inverse of tractor beam. Coined by American science fiction author E. E. Smith in 1931 in his novel Spacehounds of IPC, first serialized in Amazing Stories.
