Adjacent Words

balance wheel definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a wheel that regulates the rate of movement in a machine; especially a wheel oscillating against the hairspring of a timepiece to regulate its beat [syn: balance wheel, balance]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1669 1. a wheel that regulates or stabilizes the motion of a mechanism 2. a balancing or stabilizing force

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

3. A bicycle or a tricycle; a velocipede. 4. A rolling or revolving body; anything of a circular form; a disk; an orb. --Milton. 5. A turn revolution; rotation; compass. According to the common vicissitude and wheel of things, the proud and the insolent, after long trampling upon others, come at length to be trampled upon themselves. --South. [He] throws his steep flight in many an a["e]ry wheel. --Milton. A wheel within a wheel, or Wheels within wheels, a complication of circumstances, motives, etc. Balance wheel. See in the Vocab. Bevel wheel, Brake wheel, Cam wheel, Fifth wheel, Overshot wheel, Spinning wheel, etc. See under Bevel, Brake, etc. Core wheel. (Mach.) (a) A mortise gear. (b) A wheel having a rim perforated to receive wooden cogs; the skeleton of a mortise gear. Measuring wheel, an odometer, or perambulator. Wheel and axle (Mech.), one of the elementary machines or mechanical powers, consisting of a wheel fixed to an axle, and used for raising great weights, by applying the power to the circumference of the wheel, and attaching the weight, by a rope or chain, to that of the axle. Called also axis in peritrochio, and perpetual lever, -- the principle of equilibrium involved being the same as in the lever, while its action is continuous. See Mechanical powers, under Mechanical. Wheel animal, or Wheel animalcule (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species of rotifers having a ciliated disk at the anterior end. Wheel barometer. (Physics) See under Barometer. Wheel boat, a boat with wheels, to be used either on water or upon inclined planes or railways. Wheel bug (Zo["o]l.), a large North American hemipterous insect (Prionidus cristatus) which sucks the blood of other insects. So named from the curious shape of the prothorax. Wheel carriage, a carriage moving on wheels. Wheel chains, or Wheel ropes (Naut.), the chains or ropes connecting the wheel and rudder. Wheel cutter, a machine for shaping the cogs of gear wheels; a gear cutter. Wheel horse, one of the horses nearest to the wheels, as opposed to a leader, or forward horse; -- called also wheeler. Wheel lathe, a lathe for turning railway-car wheels. Wheel lock. (a) A letter lock. See under Letter. (b) A kind of gunlock in which sparks were struck from a flint, or piece of iron pyrites, by a revolving wheel. (c) A kind of brake a carriage. Wheel ore (Min.), a variety of bournonite so named from the shape of its twin crystals. See Bournonite. Wheel pit (Steam Engine), a pit in the ground, in which the lower part of the fly wheel runs. Wheel plow, or Wheel plough, a plow having one or two wheels attached, to render it more steady, and to regulate the depth of the furrow. Wheel press, a press by which railway-car wheels are forced on, or off, their axles. Wheel race, the place in which a water wheel is set. Wheel rope (Naut.), a tiller rope. See under Tiller. Wheel stitch (Needlework), a stitch resembling a spider's web, worked into the material, and not over an open space. --Caulfeild & S. (Dict. of Needlework). Wheel tree (Bot.), a tree (Aspidosperma excelsum) of Guiana, which has a trunk so curiously fluted that a transverse section resembles the hub and spokes of a coarsely made wheel. See Paddlewood. Wheel urchin (Zo["o]l.), any sea urchin of the genus Rotula having a round, flat shell. Wheel window (Arch.), a circular window having radiating mullions arranged like the spokes of a wheel. Cf. Rose window, under Rose.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Balance wheel Bal"ance wheel` 1. (Horology) (a) A wheel which regulates the beats or pulses of a watch or chronometer, answering to the pendulum of a clock; -- often called simply a balance. (b) A ratchet-shaped scape wheel, which in some watches is acted upon by the axis of the balance wheel proper (in those watches called a balance). 2. (Mach.) A wheel which imparts regularity to the movements of any engine or machine; a fly wheel.