getter

noun

1. One who, or that which, gets.

   “Many times things would open in him to admiration, showing to rich men and the eager getters of this world, the danger they were in of hurting themselves, by hindering their growth in the truth.”

   “Laird won a four-year city council term and was the top vote-getter in the 1981 election, which for the first time seated a progressive city council and a socialist mayor.”

   “In any case, now we have defined the identities and established the unique characteristics of all types of gift givers and gift getters.”

2. A function used to retrieve the value of some property of an object, contrasted with the setter.

   “A proper getter must return the type of its attribute.”

3. A material which is included in a vacuum system or device for removing gas by sorption.

   “Titanium has become the preferred getter for general vacuum-pumping applications because of its relatively high vapor pressure characteristic and its broad spectrum chemical reactivity.”

4. (historical)A miner who dug coal, contrasted with the putter, who took it to the surface.

verb

1. (transitive)To remove gas by sorption.

   “Many reactive metals rapidly pump large quantities of active gases because they getter (react with) the gases.”

name

1. A surname from German.