radar detector

Definition

An electronic device installed in a vehicle that detects police radar and laser speed-detection signals, alerting the driver to the presence of speed enforcement before they are clocked.

Example Usage

He mounted a radar detector on his dashboard to avoid getting caught speeding.

Origin

Radar detectors emerged in the 1970s as a response to increasing use of radar speed guns by law enforcement.

Fun Fact

Radar detectors are illegal for civilian use in some countries and in commercial vehicles in the United States, making their legality a complex gray area.

Source: Definition backfill (hailey)

Related Terms

Beginner

server

A powerful computer whose entire purpose in life is to serve data, files, or applications to other computers like a digital butler. It's the hardworking machine sitting in a climate-controlled room, handling requests 24/7 while your laptop gets all the credit. When it goes down, everything grinds to a halt and IT people start sweating profusely.

💻 Tech / IT

Beginner

phone cord

A coiled or straight cable used to connect a telephone handset to the base unit, or to connect a telephone to the wall jack. The iconic spiral cord became a visual symbol of 1980s and 1990s home and office technology.

💻 Tech / IT

Advanced

to messenge (verb)

A delightfully dated verb meaning to use MSN Messenger, that ancient relic of early 2000s communication. This linguistic fossil captures a time when 'BRB' actually meant something and your away message was a form of performance art. It's the verbal equivalent of finding a flip phone in your junk drawer.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

pinion

A small cogwheel that engages with a larger gear to transmit motion and force; alternatively, the outer segment of a bird's wing, or to restrain someone by binding or holding their arms. In aviation, pinions are critical components of gear systems.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

auger

A drilling tool that bores holes into wood, ice, or earth using a helical screw blade, like a corkscrew with ambition. Carpenters use small ones for precise holes, while landscapers deploy massive versions to drill fence post holes or tap maple trees. Plumbers call their drain-clearing snake version an auger too, because why make terminology simple?

💻 Tech / IT

Advanced

throughput

The amount of data, transactions, or work that flows through a system in a given time period—basically measuring how much stuff your system can churn through before collapsing. It's the metric that separates the systems that can handle Black Friday traffic from those that crumble under three simultaneous users. Higher throughput is always better, until you realize it's bottlenecked by that one database query you wrote in 2019.

💻 Tech / IT

Translate This Term

See “radar detector” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

Try the Translator

Share This Term

Post on X Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn

Discover a Term

Beginner

dltbgud

don't let the b*****ds grind you down...