carrier

A specific type of harness that is used to carry percussion instruments by a marching band or drum corps.

Short for aircraft carrier. Ex: "carrier-based military aircraft"

A unit in the computer game Starcraft that is Protoss. It carries drone interceptors that can outrange stationary ground defenses. They look like funny zeppelins.

in scandinavian folklore, a carrier was a being that witches would utilize to steal wool or milk. much like an animal familiar from british witchcraft mythos, the carrier would perform mischievous tasks for its "mother" without fail. however, there was one major difference: a carrier was not a gift from the devil but rather something the woman had to make herself.

one way to make a carrier was to steal a dead man's rib "on Whitsun morning, soon after he has been buried," and then wrap it in wool or yarn. some legends say that the wool had to be plucked from between the shoulders of a widow's sheep. after wrapping the rib, the woman would place the object between her breasts.

next she would go to communion three times to receive bread and wine, which she would secretly dribble onto the carrier. the first time wine was dribbled, the carrier would remain still. the second time, it would stir. the third time, it would be so full of life that it would try to "leap out of her bosom."

carriers were supposedly nourished on their mothers' blood. the woman would prick the inside of her thigh, and magically something akin to a witch's tit would form. the carrier would spend most of its time up the woman's skirt, feeding. some women, alternately, kept their carriers in barrels or kegs.

now for the fun part: stealing. typically, women would send out their carriers to suck the milk from neighbors' cows. the carrier, having a mouth at both ends, was said to stretch itself around the cow to suck two teats at once. when it was full it would come home and sit in the window saying, "Full belly, Mummy!" or "Churn lid off, Mummy!" The witch would then take the lid off the butter churn and say, "Sick it up, dear son!" or "Spew in the churn, little rogue!" the carrier would then cough up all the milk into the churn.

sometimes the carrier would suck up more milk than it could handle and spit some up on the way home. people have claimed to see this "carrier's spew" on the moors. it was actually probably just a yellowish-white fungus.

if a woman was revealed to be a carrier's mother, she would usually be promptly destroyed along with her pet. the carrier would be chased into her skirts, which would then be tied up so that the thing could not escape. both would then be burned.

Scandinavian Folktales, edited by Jacqueline Simpson. good book.

Carrier is a solitaire board game from Victory Games. The main focus of the game is (surprise, surpise) aircraft carriers in WWII, and the player controls up to three US task forces in the Pacific campaign.

The Japanese forces are kept track of with "intelligence counters", representing how much information is known about each force. This system gives a feeling of suspense, in that you never know as much as you would like about your enemy. The important thing is to find the enemy carriers before they find you.

The rule system of this game is very complicated, with special rules and exceptions for everything. The reason is that the rules are built on actual experiences from the war. Under almost every rule, there is a "Design note" of why this rule simulates the conditions of the war as well as possible.

Personally, I find this game very enjoyable and replayable, even though the threshold for learning the game was too high.

A carrier, in genetics, is a heterozygote. In this case, the dominant gene (the one that shows) is the normal gene, and the recessive gene codes for some abnormality, be it sickle-cell anemia or color-blindness or hemophilia or whatever. As such, the person appears normal, but presents a chance of passing on the abnormality to any offspring if he or she produces children with another carrier or an afflicted person.

It's worth mentioning that in terms of X-linked abnormalities in humans, only the female can be a carrier; the male, having only one X chromosome, will automatically show his genotype in phenotype.

It is often recommended that if you know that certain diseases, such as hemophilia or sickle-cell, run in your family, that you get tested to see if you are a carrier, as some of these abnormalities can be devastating.

1. An individual who does not display the symptoms of a disease, but harbors the pathogen which causes it, or has the gene (or genes) for it, and can transmit the disease to others either through interacting with other individuals, or by passing the disease-causing gene (or genes) to offspring.
   
   
2. A substance which transports things. For instance, carriers are used in pharmaceutical creams to get drugs past the barrier of the skin and into a person's system.

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From the BioTech Dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/. For further information see the BioTech homenode.

Car"ri*er (?), n. [From Carry.]

1.

One who, or that which, carries or conveys; a messenger.

The air which is but . . . a carrier of the sounds. Bacon.

2.

One who is employed, or makes it his business, to carry goods for others for hire; a porter; a teamster.

The roads are crowded with carriers, laden with rich manufactures. Swift.

3. Mach.

That which drives or carries; as: (a) A piece which communicates to an object in a lathe the motion of the face plate; a lathe dog. (b) A spool holder or bobbin holder in a braiding machine. (c) A movable piece in magazine guns which transfers the cartridge to a position from which it can be thrust into the barrel.

Carrier pigeon Zool., a variety of the domestic pigeon used to convey letters from a distant point to to its home. -- Carrier shell Zool., a univalve shell of the genus Phorus; -- so called because it fastens bits of stones and broken shells to its own shell, to such an extent as almost to conceal it. -- Common carrier Law. See under Common, a.

 

© Webster 1913.