air lock
5
5.6
- noun
- /ɛr lɑk/
- Specialized
:
cámara de descompresión
- The laboratory uses an air lock to ensure that outside air does not enter the clean room.
- sealing the air lock
- opening the air lock
- air lock door
Examples
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We're constructing an air lock into the cavern and a field research facility.
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Access is through a single air lock and elevator.
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Okay, we'll put the air lock here.
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Get to the air lock!
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Who opened the air lock?
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The group arrives at an air lock.
Fiction book (1990) -
All air locks will be sealed in 15 seconds.
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This is an air lock, as you are doubtless aware.
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Sergeant Siegle, return to the air lock at once.
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I'm sealing the air lock.
Synonyms
70
7.2
A sealed room that lets people move between places with different air pressure
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is partly inferable because combining 'air' with 'lock' suggests something that seals or isolates air, so learners can guess it relates to preventing air exchange. However, the technical sense of an enclosed chamber for pressure transition and contamination control goes beyond the common B1 understanding of 'lock' as a fastening, so the full meaning is not completely predictable.
Etymology
Air lock comes from the simple image of a small room that holds air between two doors so it works like a lock. You step in, close the first door, let the air inside change to match the next room, then open the second door, so it lets people pass while 'keeping air and pressure from changing'.