[a. L. accumulātor, n. of agent f. accumulāre; see ACCUMULATE and -OR.]
1. One who heaps up, amasses or collects.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, I. 62 (1811). To go on heaping up, till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner.
1870. Athenæum, 23 July, 111/1. The contemptible insignificance of the sordid accumulator whose wealth becomes much less his own property than the possession of society.
2. One who takes degrees by accumulation.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. col. 851. Charles Croke of the same house, an Accumulator and Compounder.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp. Wood gives numerous instances of Accumulators; i. e. persons who accumulated, or took degrees by Accumulation at Oxford.
3. Anything that accumulates. spec. An apparatus or arrangement for collecting and storing electricity.
1877. W. Thomson, Voy. of Challenger, II. iii. 43. These accumulators are india-rubber bands, 3/4 inch in diameter and 3 feet in length.
1879. R. S. Ball, in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 241/2. This energy is stored up by the engine in what is called an accumulator.
1881. Standard, 30 Dec., 5/3. The Faure, Planté, and Meriten’s accumulators … are assuredly among the great factors of the future.
1881. Sir W. Thomson, in Nature, No. 619, 434. However convenient and non-wasteful the accumulator—whether Faure’s electric accumulator, or other accumulators of energy hitherto invented.
