Word.ws English Dictionary

airlock

airlock noun: a sealed, airtight chamber, such as in a manned spacecraft or submarine, used to provide access to and from the sealed area without allowing air out or water in. Also the alternative form of air lock.

Noun

airlock (plural airlocks)

  1. A sealed, airtight chamber, such as in a manned spacecraft or submarine, used to provide access to and from the sealed area without allowing air out or water in.
    • At the head of the machine, we are shown the airlock through which people have to pass to work on the cutting head, as it operates under pressure to prevent leakages into the tunnel.2022 March 23, Paul Bigland, “HS2 is just 'passing through'”, in RAIL, number 953, page 42
  2. (informal) A vestibule, foyer or entranceway with doors to the exterior on one end and doors to the interior on the other, functioning to keep indoor and outdoor air, humidity, and air temperatures separate.

Verb

airlock (third-person singular simple present airlocks, present participle airlocking, simple past and past participle airlocked)

  1. (transitive) To secure with an airlock.
  2. (transitive) To dispose of through an airlock.
    • Delighted by the unexpected two-pelt bonus, he airlocked the meat. Wookiee tasted oily and foul.2011 June 28, Kevin Anderson, Tales of the Bounty Hunters: Star Wars Legends, Random House Worlds, →ISBN
    • I'm glad I hid it when I arrived on board because I'm pretty sure Skylar would've airlocked it along with my trusty cardigan and my dirty sneakers if she found them.2019 September 6, S. J. Pajonas, First Flyght: A Reverse Harem Space Opera Romance, Onigiri Press, →ISBN
  3. (figuratively, transitive) To firewall, to maintain an ethical wall.
    • […]cosmetics manufacturing enterprises do not want to have wholesalers standing in the middle to mark up prices of their products, and this has in fact affected the competitiveness of the manufacturers and airlocked the manufacturers from consumer dynamics.1998, Jonathan Reuvid, Doing Business with China, GMB Publishing, Limited

Also used as

airlock is also the alternative form of air lock.

airlock meaning in Bengali and Arabic

airlock in Bengali

sealed, airtight chamber
বায়ুকুলুপ baẏukulup

airlock in Arabic

sealed, airtight chamber
غُرْفَةُ مُعَادَلَةِ الضَّغْط ḡurfatu muʕādalati ḍ-ḍaḡṭ

Forms of airlock

Noun
pluralairlocks
alternative formair lock
alternative formair-lock
Verb
third-person singular presentairlocks
present participleairlocking
past participleairlocked
pastairlocked

Origin of airlock

From air + lock.

Questions about airlock

What does airlock mean?
Airlock means a sealed, airtight chamber, such as in a manned spacecraft or submarine, used to provide access to and from the sealed area without allowing air out or water in.
What is airlock in Bengali?
Airlock in Bengali is বায়ুকুলুপ (baẏukulup). See Airlock meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is airlock?
Airlock can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of airlock?
The plural of airlock is airlocks.

Words near airlock in the dictionary

  1. airlinese
  2. airling
  3. airlings
  4. airlink
  5. airlinks
  6. airlock
  7. airlocked
  8. airlocking
  9. airlocks
  10. airly
  11. airmail

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: airlock (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-airlock.wav.

Cite this entry: “airlock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/airlock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.