[f. VENTILATE v. + -OR, or a. L. ventilātor a winnower. Cf. F. ventilateur, It. ventilatore, Sp. and Pg. -ador.]
1. A mechanical contrivance or apparatus (such as a revolving fan or wheel fixed in a special opening) by which the vitiated or heated air is drawn or removed from a building, ship, mine, etc., and a fresh supply introduced; also freq. a simple opening, or open shaft, so placed or contrived as to facilitate renewal of the air.
1743. S. Hales (title), A Description of Ventilators; whereby Great Quantities of Fresh Air may with Ease be conveyed into Mines, Goals, Hospitals, Work-Houses and Ships.
1753. Scots Mag., Feb., 99/1. Ventilators, worked by a windmill, having been fixed.
1766. Complete Farmer, 7 S 3/1. Two of the ventilators are constantly drawing in the air, and two of them … are blowing it out at their proper valves.
1802. M. Cutler in Life, etc. (1888), II. 79. Giving opportunity to workmen to fix some ventilators, which were greatly wanted in the Hall.
1836–41. Brande, Chem. (ed. 5), 143. The different ventilators may terminate in tubes connected with a chimney.
1874. Micklethwaite, Mod. Par. Churches, 216. The ventilators should always be above the heads of the congregation.
1889. Welch, Text Bk. Naval Archit., xii. 132. It is down these ventilators that air is drawn by the steam fans F to supply the boilers.
attrib. 1824. Tredgold, Princ. Ventilating Buildings (ed. 2), 94. At this centre the ventilator tube T should be placed.
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., Suppl. 924–5. Ventilator deflector, hood, shaft.
b. The former Ladies’ Gallery in the House of Commons.
1832. Macaulay, in Trevelyan, Life (1876), I. 269. A discussion by which Nancy, if she had been in the ventilator, might have been greatly edified.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-d. Pamph., vi. 20. A modern honourable member, with his strangers’ gallery, his female ventilator.
1880. Disraeli, Endym., lxxix. Lady Roehampton and Lady Montfort were both in the ventilator, and he knew it.
c. Naut. A wind-sail (see quots.).
1846. A. Young, Naut. Dict., 368. Wind-sail, or Ventilator, a sort of long canvass bag … let down a vessel’s hatchway for circulating air below.
1851. Kipping, Sailmaking (ed. 2), 59. The … ventilator is made of canvas No. 5. It is employed to convey a stream of fresh air downwards into the lower apartments of a ship.
d. Applied to devices for admitting air into a head-dress, boot, etc.
1870. C. C. Black, trans. Demmin’s Weapons of War, 255. Large tilting heaume of the fifteenth century…. It has a hinged flap or ventilator.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2706. The ventilator for hats consists of a hole in the crown, and a head-band supported at a certain distance from the sweat-lining. Ibid. The ventilator for boots consists of a double upper with holes.
2. One charged with ventilating a building, etc. Also transf.
17[?]. in Tomlinson’s Cycl. Arts, etc. (1866), II. 833/1. [This wheel was] able to suck out the foul air, or throw in fresh,… according as the Speaker is pleased to command it, whose order the ventilator waits to receive every day of the session.
1817. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., II. 195. A certain number of workers … vibrating their wings before the entrance of their hive…. The station of these ventilators is upon the floor of the hive.
1860. trans. Hartwig’s Sea & Wond., v. 55. The sun is not only the great fountain of warmth, he is also the universal ventilator.
3. One who ventilates a subject.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
