WordNet
n. a cylinder that contains brake fluid that is compressed by a piston [syn: brake cylinder, hydraulic brake cylinder]
Wikipedia
In automotive engineering, the master cylinder is a control device that converts non-hydraulic pressure (commonly from a driver's foot) into hydraulic pressure. This device controls slave cylinders located at the other end of the hydraulic system.
As piston(s) move along the bore of the master cylinder, this movement is transferred through the hydraulic fluid, to result in a movement of the slave cylinder(s). The hydraulic pressure created by moving a piston (inside the bore of the master cylinder) toward the slave cylinder(s) compresses the fluid evenly, but by varying the comparative surface-area of the master cylinder and/or each slave cylinder, one can vary the amount of force and displacement applied to each slave cylinder, relative to the amount of force and displacement applied to the master cylinder.
Usage examples of "master cylinder".
Eventually somebody hit on the idea of recording additional cylinders of a master cylinder by means of a pantograph, which was an arrangement of levers and wires that transmitted the sound vibrations from the stylus on the master disc to that on the receiving disc.
Laurent couldn't imagine what harm he expected to do to this great machine, but he saw the lance hit true in the center of a small brass plug in the shiny master cylinder.