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In days gone by, much of the male population of the northern states in the cold months would wear a garment of thermal underwear covering the entire body, called a union suit. Union suits kept sodbusters, cowboys, and townsfolk alike not only warm but also itchy and a little on the smelly side (back when bathing once a week was considered the height of cleanliness). Thermal imaging is photography that captures "heat pictures"--rather than ordinary light pictures--of objects. And thermal pollution occurs when industrial water use ends up warming a river in a damaging way. Small-plane pilots use thermal as a noun for a warm updraft, often over a plowed field or desert, that lifts their wings, just as it enables hawks to soar upward without moving their wings.
Examples of thermal in a Sentence
Rebecca Cohen, NBC News, 9 Nov. 2024
The increase is attributed to higher seaborne thermal coal pricing.
—Quartz Bot, Quartz, 8 Nov. 2024
Josh Honeycutt, Outdoor Life, 14 Nov. 2024
The larger and more spread out V-Cache die that's still 64MB in capacity also likely helps with thermals as the heat production extends over a larger area.
—PCMAG, 6 Nov. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Thermal.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thermal. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.
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