transformer meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

transformer

nounalso spelled Transformer

UK /tɹænsˈfɔːmə/ · US /tɹænsˈfoɹməɹ/

Etymology From transform + -er.

Something that transforms, changing its own or another thing's shape.

Business, Electrical, Electrical engineering, Electricity, Electromagnetism, Energy, Engineering, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics A static device that transfers electric energy from one circuit to another by magnetic coupling; primarily used to transfer energy between different voltage levels, which allows the most appropriate voltages for power generation, transmission and distribution to be chosen separately.

While initial reports Thursday traced the glow to a transformer explosion or a fire, Mr. McGee said there was no fire, and there were no transformers involved.2018 December 28, Michael Gold, “How an Explosion (Not Aliens) Turned New York’s Night Sky an Electric Blue”, in The New York Times:

A neural network architecture composed of layers of attention which takes sequences of tokens (representing text, images, audio, or other modalities) as input.

Machine learning

Transformer is a deep machine learning model based on the encoder–decoder network architecture and is used primarily in the field of NLP.2021, Lei Chen, Deep Learning and Practice with MindSpore, Springer Nature, →ISBN, page 116:
The transformer helped machine-learning systems improve at a much faster pace, leading directly to last year’s release of ChatGPT and the attendant boom in interest around AI. (Transformers are the “T” in ChatGPT.)2023 January 31, Casey Newton, “Instagram’s co-founders are back with Artifact, a kind of TikTok for text”, in The Verge:

1 more example

Privately, many at Google have bristled at criticism of its AI credentials, in particular given that it incubated the underlying technology and released it publicly in the 2017 transformers paper.2025 May 24, Stephen Morris, Melissa Heikkilä, Cristina Criddle, “Defending the high ground”, in FT Weekend (Big Read section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7:

Fiction, Literature, Media, Publishing Alternative letter-case form of Transformer.

Derived terms: autotransformer, distribution transformer, isolation transformer, multiple transformer, Transformer, transformerless, transformerlike
Related terms: transform, transformation, metamorphosis, shape change

Transformer

noun

US /tɹænsˈfɔɹmɚ/ · UK /tɹɑːnsˈfɔːmə/

Etymology From transformer (something that transforms).

A toy in the Transformers toyline which has mechanical parts that allow it to be altered in appearance from its original form as a humanoid robot action figure to another form, usually a vehicle, depending on the toy.

Fiction, Literature, Media, Publishing In the Transformers franchise, any of the alien humanoid robots that can mechanically alter their appearance, or "transform", into a vehicle, creature, or (rarely) a tool.

“It's like a Transformer today,” Stamm said. “It appears as one thing, then becomes another.”2015, Steve Berry, The Patriot Threat: A Novel, page 304:
A Transformer may be both a robot and a plane, or a robot and a car, but not both simultaneously.2014, Barbara Brownie, Transforming Type: New Directions in Kinetic Typography, page 95:

1 more example

Halloween? I dressed up as a Transformer. I dressed up as a Power Ranger. I was one of the Chipmunks for God's sake.2012, Patricia Wettig, F2M, page 46: