also carburator, carburettor, device to enhance a gas flame by adding volatile hydrocarbons, 1866, from carburet "compound of carbon and another substance" (1795, now displaced by carbide), also used as a verb, "to combine with carbon" (1802); from carb-, combining form of carbon, + -uret, an archaic suffix from Modern Latin -uretum, used in English to parallel French words in -ure. Motor vehicle sense "apparatus for injecting fuel in fine particles into air to prepare it for the cylinder" is from 1896.
