Dispensing or dosing?

As a non-native speaker I'm looking for the right term for a technical application/product that dispenses or doses a viscous liquid, i.e. the device will "output" a specific amount of "stuff".

However, dosing/dose/dosage appear to be "medical" to me, also maybe describing a ratio of components (like controlling the amount / rate of medicine/drug added to an IV drip).

On the other hand, dispenser more seems to be "outputting" or making available already discrete "entities", e.g. a tissue dispenser.

I'm lacking knowledge of more elaborate uses of those words and appreciate any comments.

• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dispense#English
• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dose#English

Solution 1:

As the device outputs a viscous liquid, "dispense" seems to be an accurate term. The product can be compared to a soap dispenser. Therefore, I would suggest calling the product a

-type of viscous liquid- dispenser

Solution 2:

Until just a few minutes ago, I was unware of the verb form to dose.

A quick Google Search brought me to the Wikipedia article which explains that it is commonly used by engineers in thermal power stations, in water treatment, in steam industries, and chemical or textile plants.

If your intended audience does not work in any of those industries, I would avoid using dose.

As to your concern about dispenser, it is not limited to discrete amounts. In fact a quick Google Image search for dispenser demonstrates that some of the most common types of dispensers are for water, liquid soap, and tape, each of which are not dispensed in discrete amounts.

Solution 3:

To confirm and provide further evidence that a dispenser is the word you are looking for. Moreover, the nozzle bit is commonly referred to as a pump dispenser.

The plastic container description in verbatim:

The dispenser bottles are an ideal solution for liquid dispensing and storage. The pump can be relocked by pushing down with a press pump action for easy dispensing. The plastic lotion dispenser bottles are suitable for shampoo, lotions, soap, sanitiser, creams and more.

definition of nozzle http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nozzle