Breathalyzer

//ˈbɹɛθəlaɪzɚ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A device that measures alcohol in expired air so as to estimate the concentration of alcohol in a person's blood; used by traffic police in cases of suspected driving while under the influence of alcohol.

    "During the three day class we took one day of classroom study followed by one day of operating the breathalyzer and one day of drinking. Yes, I said drinking. […] I hated it but I got it down long enough to take the breathalyzer test. I blew a .11 on the model 900A Breathalyzer."

  2. 2
    a device that measures chemicals (especially the alcohol content) in a person's expired breath wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
breathalyser

Example

More examples

"He failed the breathalyzer test."

Etymology

Blend of breath + analyzer. Originally a trademark of Smith & Wesson.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.