Word.ws English Dictionary

diesel-electric

diesel-electric adjective: describing a power system in which a diesel engine powers an electrical generator.

Adjective

diesel-electric (not comparable)

  1. Describing a power system in which a diesel engine powers an electrical generator.
    • In the United States, where the railways are 90 per cent. dieselised today, diesel-electric power is the unvarying rule for independent locomotive units, and the only motive power exceptions are the highly successful 600-h.p. diesel-hydraulic railcars of the Budd "RDC" type, of which between 300...1958 April, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 268

Noun

diesel-electric (plural diesel-electrics)

  1. A diesel-electric locomotive.
    • Brush supplied shunters to industrial clients, but the first significant main line order came from the Ceylon Government Railway in 1950 for 25 diesel-electrics.2021 June 30, David Clough, “Brush: a UK rail icon”, in RAIL, number 934, page 55

Forms of diesel-electric

pluraldiesel-electrics

Questions about diesel-electric

What does diesel-electric mean?
Diesel-electric means describing a power system in which a diesel engine powers an electrical generator.
What part of speech is diesel-electric?
Diesel-electric can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near diesel-electric in the dictionary

  1. diesel multiple units
  2. diesel particulate filter
  3. diesel therapy
  4. diesel tree
  5. diesel trees
  6. diesel-electric
  7. diesel-electrics
  8. diesel-hydraulic
  9. diesel-hydraulics
  10. diesel-powered
  11. dieseldom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: diesel-electric (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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