Adjacent Words

Steelyard definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

STEELYARD, n. [steel and yard.] The Roman balance; an instrument for weighing bodies, consisting of a rod or bar marked with notches, designating the number of pounds and ounces, and a weight which is movable along this bar, and which is made to balance the weight of the body by being removed at a proper distance from the fulcrum. The principle of the steelyard is that of the lever; where an equilibrium is produced, when the products of the weights on opposite sides into their respective distances from the fulcrum, are equal to one another. Hence a less weight is made to indicate a greater, by being removed to a greater distance from the fulcrum.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a portable balance consisting of a pivoted bar with arms of unequal length [syn: steelyard, lever scale, beam scale]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: probably from ³steel + ⁴yard (rod) Date: 1639 a balance in which an object to be weighed is suspended from the shorter arm of a lever and the weight determined by moving a counterpoise along a graduated scale on the longer arm until equilibrium is attained

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. a kind of balance with a short arm to take the item to be weighed and a long graduated arm along which a weight is moved until it balances.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Steelyard Steel"yard, n. [So named from a place in London called the Steelyard, which was a yard in which steel was sold.] A form of balance in which the body to be weighed is suspended from the shorter arm of a lever, which turns on a fulcrum, and a counterpoise is caused to slide upon the longer arm to produce equilibrium, its place upon this arm (which is notched or graduated) indicating the weight; a Roman balance; -- very commonly used also in the plural form, steelyards.