conditioner
Pluralconditioners
- 1A product applied to the hair after shampooing to soften it and make it easier to comb.
After rinsing out the shampoo, she worked a handful of conditioner through her hair.
This conditioner leaves long hair tangle-free and shiny.
- 2A laundry product added during washing or rinsing to soften fabrics and reduce static.
A splash of conditioner in the final rinse leaves the sheets soft.
Some conditioners coat the fibers and cut down on static cling.
Similarsoftener
- 3Any substance or device that improves the condition or quality of something else.
The gardener spread a conditioner across the beds to improve the tired soil.
Water conditioners remove the minerals that make pipes scale up.
Similartreatment
Note
The broad sense the others narrow from: condition plus the agent suffix -er, so anything that brings something into better condition. Soil and water conditioners keep that open meaning. In everyday talk, though, the bare word usually means the hair product, so a qualifier such as soil or water is the safest way to signal the general sense.
- 4
- 5A farm machine that crimps and crushes newly cut hay to speed up and even out its drying.
The farmer ran the cut grass through a conditioner to shorten drying time.
Modern mowers often include a conditioner mounted behind the cutter bar.
Note
Freshly cut hay has to dry before it can be baled, and this machine shortens the wait. Crimping or crushing the stems breaks their waxy outer layer, so moisture escapes faster and the crop cures more evenly. It can work as a separate implement or be mounted behind a mower's cutter bar, which lets the hay be cut and conditioned in a single pass.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from "condition" combined with the suffix "-er".