HIGH-PRESSURE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of High-pressure

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/haɪ-prˈɛʃər/ Listen

adjective

High-pressure adj.

Having or involving a pressure greatly exceeding that of the atmosphere; said of steam, air, water, etc., and of steam, air, or hydraulic engines, water wheels, etc.

Fig.: Urgent; intense; as, a high-pressure business or social life.

Using intense psychological pressure or other incentives to convince others to do things; aggressively persistent; as, high-pressure salesmen; high-pressure tactics.

High-pressure engine, an engine in which steam at high pressure is used. It may be either a condensing or a noncondensing engine. Formerly the term was used only of the latter. See Steam engine.

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Etymology of 'High-pressure'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"High-pressure" Quotes from Famous Books

... coach-lamps, and the gleam on the hatches and paddle-boxes is their gleam on cottages and haystacks, and the monotonous noise of the engines is the steady jingle of the splendid team. Anon, the intermittent funnel-roar of protest at every violent roll becomes the regular blast of the high-pressure engine, and I recognise the exceedingly explosive steamer in which I ascended the Mississippi when the American Civil War was not, and when only its causes were. A fragment of mast on which the light of a lantern falls, an end of rope, and a jerking block or so become ...

— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... human ingenuity—Mr. Buchanan says so," squealed the high-pressure cylinder. "This is simply ridiculous!" The piston went up savagely, and choked, for half the steam behind it was mixed with dirty water. "Help! Oiler! Fitter! Stoker! Help I'm choking," it gasped. "Never in the history of maritime invention has such a calamity over-taken one so young and ...

— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... write, onless it is by jarks, Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' oridgenal patriarchs; To fit a feller f' wut they call the soshle higherarchy, All thet you've gut to know is jest beyund an evrage darky; Schoolin' 's wut they can't seem to stan', they're tu consarned high-pressure, An' knowin' t' much might spile a boy for bein' a Secesher. We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner ministeril taxes; The min'ster's only settlement 's the carpet-bag he packs his Razor an' soap-brush intu, with his hymbook an' his Bible,— But they du preach, I swan to man, it's puf'kly indescrib'le! ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... operation near Statesburg, S. C.; but whether it was successful or not is not known. Oliver Evans was operating a single-flue boiler for steam-power by 1786. Soon after he had one with two flues, and in 1779 a high-pressure or non-condensing engine, the principle of which he is by many believed to have invented. He was the earliest builder of steam-engines in the United States, having in 1804 secured a patent for the high-pressure ...

— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews