electric arc

1. 1.

   electrical conduction through a gas in an applied electric field

   Synonymsdischargesparkarcelectric discharge

   Broaderelectrical conduction

   Narrowerbrush dischargecorona dischargeflashover

Questions about electric arc

What does electric arc mean?

electric arc means "electrical conduction through a gas in an applied electric field".

What is another word for electric arc?

Close synonyms include discharge, spark, arc, electric discharge. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is electric arc a common word?

electric arc is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.