[f. as prec. + -ER1.]
1. He who or that which analyzes.
1627. Bp. Hall, Apol. agst. Brownists, § 52. I need no better analyser than your selfe.
1759–67. Sterne, Tr. Shandy (1802), III. xxxviii. 377. Thou faithful analyzer of my Disgrazias.
1823. J. Harrison (title), Etymological Enchiridion or Practical Analyzer shewing the Etymon or Root of all the Words in the English Tongue.
1869. J. Martineau, Ess., II. 10. Bacon—the great analyzer of common sense.
2. Chem. & Physics. He who analyzes; = ANALYST 2.
1756. C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, III. 305. Our new analysers … make it … to suit their different purposes.
1865. Pall Mall G., 25 Aug., 9/2. The Calcutta analyzers call it an impure peat.
1875. Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, i. 12. The hardest chemist, the severest analyzer.
3. In the polariscope, an apparatus employed to exhibit the fact that the light has been polarized.
1863. Atkinson, Ganot’s Physics, § 638. Every instrument for investigating the properties or polarised light consists essentially of two parts, one for polarising the light, the other for ascertaining the fact of light having undergone polarisation. The former part is called the polariser, the latter the analyser.
1867. Sir J. Herschel, Fam. Lect. Sc. (1871), 382. The tourmaline plate between the eye and the crystal, which we shall call the ‘analyzing plate,’ or the ‘analyzer.’
