breathalyzer

English

Alternative forms

• breathalyser (British)

Etymology

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

Noun

breathalyzer (plural breathalyzers)

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.
   • 2012, G. Douglas Ward, Memories of a Small-Town Cop, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 73:

     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.

Usage notes

Often capitalized.

Translations

a device that measures alcohol in expired air

• Basque: alkoholimetro
• Catalan: alcoholímetre m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 酒精測定器／酒精测定器 (jiǔjīng cèdìngqì), 酒精檢測儀／酒精检测仪 (jiǔjīng jiǎncèyí)

• Czech: foukací balónek m, alkohol test
• Finnish: alkometri (fi)
• French: éthylotest (fr) m, éthylomètre (fr) m, alcootest (fr) m
• Galician: alcoholímetro m, alcolímetro m
• German: Blasrohr (de) n (colloquial), Alkoholtester m
• Hebrew: יַנְשׁוּף (he) m (yanshúf)
• Italian: etilometro (it) m
• Japanese: 飲酒検知器, アルコール検査
• Polish: alkomat (pl) m, balonik (pl) m
• Portuguese: etilómetro m (Portugal), etilômetro m (Brazil), alcoolímetro m, alcoolómetro m (Portugal), alcoolômetro m (Brazil), bafómetro (pt) m (Portugal), bafômetro (pt) m (Brazil), balão (pt) m (Portugal, colloquial)
• Spanish: alcoholímetro (es) m, alcotest (es) m
• Turkish: alkolmetre (tr)

Further reading

• breathalyzer on Wikipedia.Wikipedia