waterthief

plural waterthieves

1. alternativeAlternative form of water-thief (“a type of valve”).

   Weston—300 feet 1½ inch hose; 50 feet 2½ inch hose; one flasher; one siamese waterthief; one foam extinguisher.

   1960, Annual Report, Oregon, State Fire Marshal, page 96

   3 more examples

   An example is the waterthief (klepsydra). This is a tube, of which one (bottom) end is held under water, and which becomes full of water by sucking the air out of it at the other (top) end.

   1997, Gerhard Endress, Remke Kruk, editors, Akten des Zweiten Symposium Graeco-Arabicum, page 197

   The APC Tank was capable of delivering three mediums of extinguishing agents via a valved “Waterthief” three-way appliance that was connected to the P-250 pump.

   2021, Michael Louis Kuk, An Army Firefighter in Vietnam 1970-1971

   The most common control loop is called the feedback control loop. Feedback control is as old as civilization, or at least 1000 years old. Figure 17.8 shows a klepshydra, which is ancient Greek for "waterthief"!

   2023, Edwin Zondervan, Cristhian Almeida-Rivera, Kyle Vincent Camarda, Product-Driven Process Design, page 439