camelback
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]
Noun
[edit]camelback (countable and uncountable, plural camelbacks)
- (uncountable) The backs of camels.
- Coordinate term: horseback
- We travelled across the desert on camelback.
- (countable) A flexible water container worn on the back.
- An empty camelback is a blessing and a curse: it is easy to carry, but it means you have no water.
- (countable) A house with a second storey that does not completely cover the ground floor.
- My friend lived in a camelback; we used to have fun climbing out of the window onto the roof below.
- (countable, rail transport) A railway locomotive that has its cab in the middle as opposed to at the end.
- The camelbacks were designed to help with the visibility problems inherent in putting the driver behind the entire engine.
- (countable) A sofa or chair whose back has a raised middle part.
- He fell back relieved into his favourite camelback with a gin and tonic.
- (uncountable) A type of rubber used in tyre restoration.
- We require four million tons of camelback each year.
- The camelback rubber produced in this plant is shipped around the world.
- 1943 November 10, Lyle M. Buckingham, “Distribution of motor-vehicle tires. [Testimony.]”, in Hearings Before the United States Senate Committee on Banking and Currency[1], United States Government Printing Office, page 51:
- In 1942 almost 86,000,000 pounds of camelback—a 25-percent increase over 1941—were made available for recapping purposes, and the output of this product is continually increasing. Dealer establishments are as busy as beehives. They have about 90 percent of the recapping equipment. In the testimony before you yesterday one of the proponents of this bill admitted that independent dealers had 88 percent of all the recapping machinery there is in the United States. We estimate that it is probably about that figure, although we thought it was a little higher, probably 90 percent. In addition to recapping tires for the general public, they also are doing this work on Government-owned tires, including the military, with the result that the independent dealer has retreaded hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tires, at a substantial profit, during said period.
