Escapement

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Escapement \Es*cape"ment\, n. [Cf. F. ['e]chappement. See
     {Escape}.]
     1. The act of escaping; escape. [R.]
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Way of escape; vent. [R.]


        [1913 Webster]
  
              An escapement for youthful high spirits. --G. Eliot.
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     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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     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.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  escapement
       n : mechanical device that regulates movement