Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In wash-bottles and similar apparatus for the handling of gases, a tube with a stop-cock connecting the ingress and egress tubes, so that by opening the stopcock the gas may pass without flowing through the apparatus itself.
  • noun Any passage for conducting around an obstruction, such as a closed valve, a part of the fluid or material which goes through the main channel.
  • To permit (a liquid) to flow through an auxiliary channel, around a valve or a cylinder or back into a reservoir, instead of pursuing the usual or direct course through the main or normal channel.
  • To furnish with a by-pass.
  • noun An extra gas-pipe passing around a valve or gas-chamber, used to prevent a complete stoppage of the flow of gas when the valve or chamber is closed.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mech.) A by-passage, for a pipe, or other channel, to divert circulation from the usual course.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb avoid something unpleasant or laborious
  • noun a highway that encircles an urban area so that traffic does not have to pass through the center
  • noun a conductor having low resistance in parallel with another device to divert a fraction of the current
  • noun a surgically created shunt (usually around a damaged part)

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