sodium-vapour lamp

Thân thiện

A sodium-vapour lamp casts a yellow glow on the empty street at night.

Definition

Noun: - A type of electric lamp that produces a characteristic yellow light by passing an electric current through a tube containing sodium vapor. It is commonly used for street lighting and other outdoor illumination due to its high efficiency and long life.

Usage

• Primary Use: Describing a specific technology for generating light, particularly in public and industrial settings.
  • The city council decided to replace all the old streetlights with modern sodium-vapour lamps.
  • The orange glow of the sodium-vapour lamp made the empty parking lot look eerie.

Advanced Usage

• Technical Context: Often discussed in terms of energy efficiency, light pollution, or the color rendering index (CRI), as sodium-vapour lamps emit light in a narrow spectrum.
  • Astronomers often criticize sodium-vapour lamps for their contribution to skyglow, which interferes with observations.

Variants and Related Words

• Sodium-vapor lamp (noun): An alternative spelling, primarily used in American English.
• Sodium lamp (noun): A common shortened form.
• High-pressure sodium lamp (noun): A more efficient and brighter variant of the standard low-pressure sodium-vapour lamp.
• Gas-discharge lamp (noun): The broader category of lamps to which sodium-vapour lamps belong.

Synonyms

• Sodium lamp
• Sodium-vapor lamp (US spelling)

Notes on Meaning

• The term specifically refers to the lamp's technology and its distinctive yellow light. It is not used metaphorically. The primary association is with functional, public-area lighting rather than domestic or decorative lighting.

Học thuật

Noun

1. lamp in which an electric current passed through a tube of sodium vapor makes a yellow light; used is street lighting

Từ đồng nghĩa

• sodium-vapor lamp