negawatt
negawatt · negawatts
A unit of saved energyA unit of saved energy.
UK/ˈnɛɡ.ə.wɒt/US/ˈnɛɡ.ə.wɑt/
Meaning
1 senses(informal)A unit of saved energy.
Origin
Coined by Amory Lovins, chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute as a contraction of negatCoined by Amory Lovins, chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute as a contraction of negative watt on the model of similar compounds like megawatt, by surface analysis, nega- + watt. Lovins credited the term to a typo in a document by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission in which the word "megawatt" was misspelled.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.