semiconductor

Etymology

From semi- + conductor.

noun

1. (physics) A substance with electrical properties intermediate between a good conductor and a good insulator.
   In this sense we are to understand the following table in which bodies are classed as conductors, semiconductors, and nonconductors; those bodies being conveniently designated as conductors which, when applied to an electroscope charged with either kind of electricity discharge it almost instantaneously; semiconductors being those which discharge it in a short but measurable time, a few seconds, for instance; while nonconductors effect no discharge even, in the course of a minute. 1876, Adolphe Ganot, Natural Philosophy for General Readers and Young Persons, page 422
   The following table of conductors may therefore be used in inverse order as a table of resistances, the good conductors being bodies of slight resistance, the semiconductors being bodies of great resistance, and the insulators being bodies of so great resistance that they almost effectually oppose the passage of any current. 1901, George W. Jacoby, A System of Physiologic Therapeutics: Electrotherapy