Hacker News Reader

Many languages still call them "condensers"; from the top of my head, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, and likely many others.

Even in English in some cases the term is still used, for example in condenser microphones, and in the context of old mechanical fuel systems.

My dad, a lifetime ham radio operator and an EE called them condensers sometimes. And would refer to frequencies in kilocycles.

Hmm, I have read contradicting accounts.

They say the term did not originate from the steam condenser. Quite the opposite, it became deprecated because of the ambiguous meaning of steam condenser.

What I'm reading (and was told by grey beards) is that it originated as a metaphor to steam condensers, and was deprecated because the two different systems having the same term led to ambiguities. Including the fact that they do have different properties, such as steam condensers are able to absorb steam pressure, but can't actually return the steam when the input pressure drops back down (since it's already been condensed back into water).