transformer
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
a piece of equipment that changes the voltage of an electric current.
a static apparatus that transfers electrical energy between circuits through electromagnetic induction, typically to change voltage levels.
Simple“The power lines use a transformer to lower the voltage before electricity enters your home.”
In context“High-voltage transmission requires a step-down transformer at the local substation to ensure the current is safe for residential distribution.”
UsageOften used with 'step-up' or 'step-down' to indicate whether voltage is being increased or decreased.
Synonymsconvertervoltage regulator - 02 C1 Advanced
a person or thing that changes the shape or character of something else.
an agent, person, or mechanism that effects a significant change in the form, nature, or appearance of something.
Simple“The new CEO was a transformer who completely changed how the company worked.”
In context“The artist viewed the kiln not just as a tool, but as a transformer of raw clay into permanent sculpture.”
- 03 C1 Advanced
a type of computer system used in AI to understand and generate text or images.
a deep learning model architecture that relies on the mechanism of attention to weigh the influence of different parts of input data.
Simple“Modern AI tools like chatbots are built using a transformer architecture.”
In context“The introduction of the transformer model revolutionised natural language processing by allowing for more efficient parallelization than previous recurrent networks.”
Synonymsneural networkmodel - 04 B1 Intermediate
a toy robot that can be folded or changed into a vehicle or animal.
a fictional alien robot or associated toy capable of mechanically shifting between a humanoid form and an alternative mode, such as a vehicle.
Simple“The child spent all afternoon changing his transformer from a robot into a yellow car.”
In context“The franchise became a global phenomenon, centered on the conflict between two factions of transformers that could disguise themselves as everyday machinery.”
Teacher's tipWhen referring to the brand or the specific characters, it is usually capitalized as 'Transformer'.
Synonymsaction figure
From transform + -er.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.