semiconductor

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.