A substance or material that resists the flow of electricity or heat, similar to what we now call an insulator.
From anti- (against) + conductor (from Latin conducere, to lead together). This word emerged in 18th-century electrical experiments when scientists were first categorizing materials by their ability to carry or resist electrical current.
This is an obsolete term that shows how scientific vocabulary evolves—we figured out 'insulator' worked better, but anticonductor perfectly shows the logic: if a conductor conducts electricity, an anticonductor fights against conducting it, which is exactly what insulators do.
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