Also trombe, tromp. [F. trompe, trombe.] An apparatus for producing a blast, in which water falling in a pipe carries air into a receiver, where it is compressed, and thence led to the blast-pipe; a water blowing-engine. Also attrib.
1828. Webster, Tromp, a blowing machine formed of a hollow tree, used in furnaces.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 824. The trompe, or water-blowing engine. Ibid., 825. The ordinary height of the trompe apparatus is about 26 or 27 feet to the upper level of the water cistern.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Trombe or Trompe, (Fr.), an apparatus for producing an air-blast by means of a falling stream of water, which mechanically carries air down with it, to be subsequently separated and compressed in a reservoir or drum below.
1894. Bowker, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 418. About the middle of the seventeenth century the tromp was introduced.
