Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The point or support on which a lever pivots.
- noun Zoology An anatomical structure that acts as a hinge or a point of support.
- noun An agent through which vital powers are exercised.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To furnish with a fulcrum; establish as a fulcrum.
- noun In rotifers, the short stem of the incus, one of the parts of the mastax or pharyngeal mill.
- noun In the trilobites, the bend or the point of abrupt curvature of the thoracic pleura, which divides them into proximal and distal portions.
- noun A prop or support.
- noun In mech., the point of rest about which a lever turns in lifting a body; also, a prop or support for a lever at this point. See
lever . - noun In botany, an accessory organ, such as a bract, stipule, spine, etc., or one of the aërial roots of climbing plants, as of ivy.
- noun In mycology, one of the radiating appendages of the perithecia of Erysipheæ.
- noun In entomology, the inferior horny surface of the ligula, found in many Hymenoptera, etc. Also called the os hyoideum.
- noun In ichthyology, a special scale or spine on the fore edge of the anterior fin-rays of the dorsal or caudal fins of certain ganoid fishes, as Lepidosteus, Acipenser, and many fossil genera.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A prop or support.
- noun (Mech.) That by which a lever is sustained, or about which it turns in lifting or moving a body.
- noun (Bot.), rare An accessory organ such as a tendril, stipule, spine, and the like.
- noun The horny inferior surface of the lingua of certain insects.
- noun One of the small, spiniform scales found on the front edge of the dorsal and caudal fins of many ganoid fishes.
- noun (Anat.) The connective tissue supporting the framework of the retina of the eye.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun mechanics The
support about which alever pivots .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the pivot about which a lever turns
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fulcrum.
Examples
-
The fulcrum is the theological and philosophical inclinations a person brings to science and evolution.
-
What Goodman calls the "fulcrum" of the museum is the courtroom where in 1950 Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver and his committee held hearings into organized crime.
Ellen Sterling: Las Vegas' New Mob Museum Tells An All-American Story Ellen Sterling 2012
-
Where Mr. Farrell and Mr. Kersten part company as biographers is in their handling of a particular episode that forms what the latter calls the "fulcrum" of Darrow's career.
A Man in Search of a Lost Cause Carl Rollyson 2011
-
-- The simple lever with a pawl on each side of the fulcrum is the most effective means to make a continuous feed by the simple movement of a lever.
Practical Mechanics for Boys J. S. Zerbe
-
In bending the forearm on the arm, familiarly known as "trying your muscle," the power is supplied by the biceps muscle attached to the radius, the fulcrum is the elbow joint at one end of the lever, and the resistance is the weight of the forearm at the other end.
A Practical Physiology Albert F. Blaisdell
-
In any form of lever there are only three things to be considered: the point where the weight rests, the point where the force acts, and the point called the fulcrum about which the rod rotates.
General Science Bertha M. Clark
-
[33] The fulcrum, which is generally treated as being absolutely immovable, being the general belief in the theory of democracy.
Anticipations Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human life and Thought 1906
-
What does the poll identify as the fulcrum of Lincoln's precipitously declining numbers?
-
What does the poll identify as the fulcrum of Lincoln's precipitously declining numbers?
-
Lax regulation may have been the lever that pushed the world into the present financial crisis, but the fulcrum was the twin excesses of over-financialization and over-globalization, according to UC Berkeley economist Ashok Bardhan.
YaleGlobal Online 2009
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.