- 1詢答機、應答器（收到訊號就自動回覆訊號的無線電裝置）；飛機上的那個叫「飛機詢答機」，高速公路 eTag 也是同一個原理。
A piece of radio equipment that stays quiet until it is asked something, and then answers automatically. A signal comes in; the transponder sends a signal back. Nobody has to press a button.
The most famous ones are on aircraft. Air traffic control sends out a radar pulse, and every plane's transponder replies with its identity and height — which is how a controller's screen shows not just dots but 'this dot is flight BR225 at 30,000 feet'. When you hear on the news that a plane's transponder 'went dark' or 'stopped responding', this is the box they mean.
But they are everywhere else too: on satellites (a satellite transponder receives a signal from the ground and sends it back down over a wide area), in the little tag on a car that opens a toll gate or a car park barrier — Taiwan's eTag works on this idea — and in animal microchips and warehouse tags.
It is a technical noun, ordinary and neutral in tone. Engineers, pilots and journalists use it . There is no informal version — in casual speech people just say 'the tag' or 'the box'.
組成A blend — two words squeezed into one: TRANSmitter + resPONDER. So the name literally tells you the job: it transmits, and it responds. Words made this way are common in twentieth-century technology.
同家族的字
- transmitterthe first half of the blend — a device that sends signals out
- responderthe second half — one who answers
- respondthe verb inside 'responder'; from Latin respondere 'to answer'
- transmitthe verb inside 'transmitter'; Latin trans- 'across' + mittere 'to send'
原始詞典資料1 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
transpondernoun/tɹænˈspɒn.də/
- 1
A radar or radio transceiver that transmits some signal in response to receiving a predetermined signal.
- 36 MHz transponder providing a pool of 794 reallocatable frequencies.
- Adult animals were implanted with E-Mitter transponders intraabdominally to record body temperature and locomotor activity continuously.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。