Meaning & use
electrical apparatus
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Meaning
noununcountabletechnical
Equipment, machines or devices that run on electricity or are used to produce, control or measure it.
Grammar: Uncountable: the electrical apparatus is tested, not electrical apparatuses.
Patterns
- a piece of electrical apparatus
- maintain electrical apparatus
All electrical apparatus in the lab must be checked every year.
Keep electrical apparatus away from water.
The factory stores spare electrical apparatus in a dry room.
Common combinations
- test electrical apparatus
- Engineers test electrical apparatus before it is installed.
- portable electrical apparatus
- Portable electrical apparatus needs regular safety checks.
- faulty electrical apparatus
- Faulty electrical apparatus caused the fire.
- switch off electrical apparatus
- Please switch off electrical apparatus before leaving.
Synonyms and how they differ
- electrical equipment
- It is the more common everyday phrase and sounds less technical.
- appliances
- It usually means household machines such as kettles, whereas apparatus covers industrial and laboratory gear too.
- machinery
- It stresses moving parts and may not be electrical at all.
Word family
- electric adjective
- worked by or producing electricity
- electrician noun
- a person who installs electrical systems
- electricity noun
- energy carried by charged particles
- apparatus noun
- equipment needed for a purpose
Commonly confused: electrical apparatus or electronic?
electrical apparatus vs electronic
It refers to devices using tiny circuits and chips, while electrical is the broader word for anything powered by electricity.
Practice
Which sentence is most natural in careful English?
Choose one answer.
Apparatus is uncountable in this sense, so pieces of is used. The other options are ungrammatical or awkward.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “electrical apparatus”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.