buncher

Noun

buncher (plural bunchers)

1. A person who bunches.
   • Often a buncher might come in a little early to have some work ready when rollers arrived.[…]If a buncher ran short of tobacco, the rollers got more for her.1986, Charles Stephenson, Robert Asher, Life and Labor: Dimensions of American Working-Class History, page 199
2. A machine that twists strands together during the manufacture of metal wire; a strander.
   • Stranded copper wire and cable are made on machines known as bunchers or stranders. Conventional bunchers are used for stranding small diameter wires (34 to 10 AWG).1999, Günter Joseph, Konrad J. A. Kundig, Copper: Its Trade, Manufacture, Use and Environmental Status, page 255
3. A circuit that causes electrons or other charged particles in a particle beam to group together.
   • The pulse width can be decreased by means of a buncher, which consists of a longitudinal re-entrant cavity. The first electrons to reach the buncher are accelerated by a weaker longitudinal field than those that reach it at later times.1998, Ludwig Reimer, Scanning Electron Microscopy: Physics of Image Formation and Microanalysis, page 44
   • Amplification has taken place because in the buncher grids the electrons are affected very little, but in the drift space this effect is given time to grow and the bunching becomes much more pronounced.[…]After leaving the buncher field the electrons travel towards the plate, are slowed down...2000, Andrew Leven, Telecommunication Circuits and Technology, page 364
4. An illegitimate supplier of laboratory animals who obtains the animals by kidnapping pets or illegally trapping strays.
   • The undercover investigation of this facility has revealed that its proprietors were aware that some of the companion animals brought to the facility were stolen, and also revealed a list of over 50 “bunchers,” individuals who obtain animals and sell them to “random source” animal dealers. Bunchers...2009, US Congress (editor), Congressional Record, V. 150, Part 6: April 20 2004 to May 4 2004, page 7574
5. (RAF, World War II) A ground-based radio transmitter, configured within a system to guide aircraft to their allocated airfields.
   • Each airfield had its own buncher which emitted a particular radio signal. Each plane had a radio compass so that when we flew toward the buncher, the compass would go straight up. When we flew over the buncher, it would point straight down.2008, W. C. Gibson, “54: Lieutenant W.C. Gibson”, in Alan L. Griggs, editor, Flying Flak Alley: Personal Accounts of World War II Bomber Crew Combat, page 247