Word Direct Answers

What does "hopper" mean?

Hopper: A chute, box, or receptacle, usually funnel-shaped with an opening at the lower part, for delivering or feeding any material, as to a machine; as, the wooden box with its trough through which grain passes into a mill by joining or shaking, or a funnel through which fuel passes into a furnace, or coal, etc., into a car.

Additional senses

  1. 2.(Mus.) See Grasshopper, 2.
  2. 3.pl. A game. See Hopscotch. Johnson.
  3. 4.(Zoöl.) (a) See Grasshopper, and Frog hopper, Grape hopper, Leaf hopper, Tree hopper, under Frog, Grape, Leaf, and Tree. (b) The larva of a cheese fly.
  4. 5.(Naut.) A vessel for carrying waste, garbage, etc., out to sea, so constructed as to discharge its load by a mechanical contrivance; -- called also dumping scow. Bell and hopper (Metal.), the apparatus at the top of a blast furnace, through which the charge is introduced, while the gases are retained. -- Hopper boy, a rake in a mill, moving in a circle to spread meal for drying, and to draw it over an opening in the floor, through which it falls. -- Hopper closet, a water-closet, without a movable pan, in which the receptacle is a funnel standing on a draintrap. -- Hopper cock, a faucet or valve for flushing the hopper of a water-closet.

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