Kicker
Kicker turns up in 2 fields: electricians, railroad. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Kicker in electricians
Single shallow bend that angles conduit off its line, for example to bring it out from a wall into equipment.
A kicker, or kick, is one bend of less than 90 degrees that changes the direction of a run, often to bring conduit off a wall toward a box or to lift it over a curb or ledge. It differs from an offset, which uses two bends to end up parallel to the starting line. Kicks are often combined with a ninety when a stub-up has to angle toward its target as well as turn.
"Throw a little kicker in it after the ninety so it lines up with the KO in the bottom of the can."
Kicker in railroad
A car whose brake valve throws the whole train into emergency when only a normal service application was made.
A defective control valve can respond to an ordinary brake pipe reduction as if it were an emergency, venting the pipe locally and dragging every other car into emergency with it. The result, an undesired emergency or UDE, stops the train without warning and can cause hard slack run-ins. Carmen track down the kicker by watching which car fires first during repeated sets or with a test device, then cut the valve out or set the car out.
"Third UDE this trip on the same train, we've got a kicker somewhere in the middle and nobody can find it."