Thruster
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 One who thrusts, who pushes or stabs.
"Nevertheless osteopaths are coming to regard themselves not so much as thrusters, or even as repositioners, of bones, but as releasers of the patient's own recuperative forces."
- 2 a small rocket engine that provides the thrust needed to maneuver a spacecraft wordnet
- 3 A device for propelling an object, especially a spacecraft or a ship (marine vessel).
- 4 one who intrudes or pushes themself forward wordnet
- 5 A bow thruster or a stern thruster.
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- 6 A surfboard (usually a shortboard) with three fins of approximately equal size, one centred at the back, one on each side about 25cm forward and out near the rails.
- 7 An ambitious, driven person; a go-getter.
"The executive is a thruster with ideas to expand or improve the business and his superiors fail to react—for whatever reason—and do not give acceptable explanations."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Enos became the first chimp to orbit the earth on November 29, 1961, aboard a Mercury Atlas rocket. Although the mission plan originally called for three orbits, due to a malfunctioning thruster and other technical difficulties, flight controllers were forced to terminate Enos' flight after two orbits. Enos landed in the recovery area and was picked up 75 minutes after splashdown. He was found to be in good overall condition."
Etymology
From thrust + -er. The surfboard sense was coined (but never trademarked) by Simon Anderson, who created the design in 1980. The name was almost immediately applied generically to any surfboard with that fin design.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.