In of the pdf I was reading through, I found the best definition of "Transistor".
It is a curious structure composed from carefully chosen chemical substances with complex electrical properties that can only be understood by reference to the theory of quantum mechanics, where strange subatomic particles sometimes behave like waves and can only be described in terms of probabilities. Yet the gross behaviour of a transistor can be described, without reference to quantum mechanics, as a set of equations that relate the voltages on its terminals to the current that flows though it. These equations abstract the essential behavior of the device from its underlying physics.
[From ARM System-on-chip architecture.pdf]
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