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escapement

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escapement


  2  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  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. 
 
  From  WordNet  r  1.6  [wn]: 
 
  escapement 
  n  :  regulates  movement 




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