Adjacent Words

Escapement definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ESCA'PEMENT, n. That part of a clock or watch, which regulates its movements, and prevents their acceleration.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: mechanical device that regulates movement

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1779 1. a. a device in a timepiece which controls the motion of the train of wheelwork and through which the energy of the power source is delivered to the pendulum or balance by means of impulses that permit a tooth to escape from a pallet at regular intervals b. a ratchet device (as the spacing mechanism of a typewriter) that permits motion in one direction only in equal steps 2. a. the act of escaping b. a way of escape ; vent

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 the part of a clock or watch that connects and regulates the motive power. 2 the part of the mechanism in a piano that enables the hammer to fall back immediately it has struck the string. 3 archaic a means of escape. Etymology: F échappement f. échapper ESCAPE

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Escapement Es*cape"ment, n. [Cf. F. ['e]chappement. See Escape.] 1. The act of escaping; escape. [R.] 2. Way of escape; vent. [R.] An escapement for youthful high spirits. --G. Eliot. 3. The contrivance in a timepiece which connects the train of wheel work with the pendulum or balance, giving to the latter the impulse by which it is kept in vibration; -- so called because it allows a tooth to escape from a pallet at each vibration. Note: Escapements are of several kinds, as the vertical, or verge, or crown, escapement, formerly used in watches, in which two pallets on the balance arbor engage with a crown wheel; the anchor escapement, in which an anchor-shaped piece carries the pallets; -- used in common clocks (both are called recoil escapements, from the recoil of the escape wheel at each vibration); the cylinder escapement, having an open-sided hollow cylinder on the balance arbor to control the escape wheel; the duplex escapement, having two sets of teeth on the wheel; the lever escapement, which is a kind of detached escapement, because the pallets are on a lever so arranged that the balance which vibrates it is detached during the greater part of its vibration and thus swings more freely; the detent escapement, used in chronometers; the remontoir escapement, in which the escape wheel is driven by an independent spring or weight wound up at intervals by the clock train, -- sometimes used in astronomical clocks. When the shape of an escape-wheel tooth is such that it falls dead on the pallet without recoil, it forms a deadbeat escapement.