Also 9 storeage. [f. STORE v. + -AGE.]
1. Capacity or space for storing.
1612–3. Fletcher, Coxcomb, I. i. (1647), 99/1. They are made like Carrecks, only strength and storage.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Storage, Warehouse room for Goods.
1848. S. C. Homersham, Rep. to Directors M. S. & L. Rlwy., 55. The storage that can be made available to receive the flood water from this area of drainage ground now stands as follows.
2. The action of storing or laying up in reserve; the condition or fact of being stored.
1828. Webster, Storage, the act of depositing in a store or warehouse for safe keeping; or the safe keeping of goods in a warehouse.
1868. Daily News, 15 July. The Belgian government have determined … to prohibit the manufacture, storage, or transport of that dangerous compound [nitroglycerine] in Belgium.
1869. E. A. Parkes, Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3), 13. The chances of contamination of the water during storage are very great.
1879. M. Pattison, Milton, xiii. 207. Milton’s diction is the elaborated outcome of all the best words of all antecedent poetry, not by a process of recollected reading and storage, but [etc.].
1907. J. A. Hodges, Elem. Photogr. (ed. 6), 159. Precautions should be taken for dry storage.
b. Cold storage: the storing of provisions in refrigerating chambers as a means of preserving them from decay. Also attrib. Similarly cool storage (see quot. 1906).
1895. Daily News, 23 Nov., 3/2. We have now a very large capital … invested in cold storage premises in various parts of London.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 27 July, 7/3. To ensure that the cheese is delivered in uniform good condition the temperature of the four chambers … will be maintained at 45deg. to 48deg. This is known as ‘cool storage,’ which is distinct from cold storage.
fig. 1907. W. James, Pragmatism, vi. 231. When may a truth go into cold-storage in the encyclopedia? and when shall it come out for battle?
c. Electr. (See quot. 1893.)
1881. S. P. Thompson, in Jrnl. Soc. Arts, XXX. 30/1. The Storage of Electricity.
1893. Sloane, Electrical Dict., Storage of electricity. Properly speaking electricity can only be stored statically or in static condensers, such as Leyden jars. The term has been popularly applied to the charging of secondary or storage batteries, in which there is really no such thing as a storage of electricity, but only a decomposition and opposite combination brought about, which leave the battery in a condition to give a current.
3. A place where something is stored.
1775. in Ash.
1865. E. Burritt, Walk to Land’s End, vii. 241. The whole of Dartmoor seems to be a storage of this valuable stone [sc. granite].
4. Rent paid for warehousing.
1775. in Ash.
1809. R. Langford, Introd. Trade, 134. Storage, warehouse rent.
1817–8. Cobbett, Resid. U.S. (1822), 232. This very salt; when brought here from England, has all the charges of freight, insurance, wharfage, storage, to pay.
1862. Waterston, Man. Commerce, 303. Storeage, a charge for warehouse rent.
5. attrib., as storage bin, capacity, charge, company, dump, house, hut, pile, power, rent, reservoir, -room, warehouse.
1900. Engineering Mag., XIX. 753/1. The *storage bins for ore, limestone, and coke.
1868. in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), XVI. 458/1. Sixty-seven reservoirs … having a *storage capacity of 336,000,000 feet.
1884. Law Times Rep., XLIX. 742/2. The charges in question were warehouse and *storage charges.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 19 July, 5/2. The prospects of electric light companies in general, and storage companies in particular, have of late been so much overcast that [etc.].
1882. Rep. Prec. Met. U.S., 98. *Storage dumps have been built.
1856. Miss Warner, Hills Shatemuc, viii. The mill and *storeage house kept and owned by Mr. Cowslip.
1894. Westm. Gaz., 8 May, 5/1. On making inquiries as to who were in the *storage hut at the time.
1913. Times, 9 Aug., 19/3. At the present time there are 13,114 tons of coal in the *storage pile.
1881. S. P. Thompson, in Jrnl. Soc. Arts, XXX. 34/2. *Storage power lessened by heat.
1868. Routledge’s Ev. Boy’s Ann., 341. I paid a month’s *storage rent in advance.
1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 91. For a supply of water during the dry season we rely almost exclusively upon our *storage-reservoirs.
1848. S. C. Homersham, Rep. to Directors M. S. & L. Rlwy., 37. This amount of *storage room is by no means large.
1891. Daily News, 24 Oct., 7/4. On going into the storage-room he saw a number of pieces of meat.
1904. Westm. Gaz., 15 Dec., 11/3. The paper also recommended a system of *storage warehouses as a remedy for low prices arising from exceptionally large crops.
6. Special comb.: storage battery, a secondary battery in which a supply of electricity is accumulated; storage-bellows (see quot.); storage cell, an electrical accumulator; storage heater, a heating apparatus for railway carriages, operating by means of stored heat; storage station, a place at which electric current is stored for distribution for lighting purposes; storage tank, a tank for storage (e.g., of petrol); storage tuber, a tuber forming a reservoir of nourishment for the plant.
1881. S. P. Thompson, in Jrnl. Soc. Arts, XXX. 35/2. This is one of the rocks on which amateur constructors of *storage batteries have come to grief.
1898. A. Treadwell, Storage Battery, 206. Probably the largest installation for the operation of storage-battery cars is in Paris.
1891. Century Dict., s.v. Organ, *Storage-bellows, horizontal bellows into which the feeders open, and in which the air is kept at a uniform pressure by means of weights.
1881. S. P. Thompson, in Jrnl. Soc. Arts, XXX. 30/2. It is doubly difficult to find, in the electric accumulator or *storage cell, anything which can be called stored electricity.
1894. Westm. Gaz., 10 Dec., 8/1. The *storage heater is partially filled with a solution of salt water or acetate of soda.
1889. Daily News, 28 Nov., 6/1. The electric current will in the first place be transmitted … from Draycott-place to the three *‘storage’ stations.
1897. P. Dawson, Electric Rlwys., etc. 366. The required compressed air is carried in a *storage tank provided under each car.
1914. Bower, Address Brit. Assoc., in Nature, 24 Sept., 103/1. The plant is well known to botanists as regards its external features, its annual *storage tuber, [etc.].
