Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A rigid frame or ring in which an object is supported by pivots. Two such rings mounted on axes at right angles to each other allow an object such as a ship's compass to remain suspended in a horizontal plane between them regardless of any motion of its support.
  • noun A device consisting of gimbals.
  • transitive verb To supply with or support on gimbals.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A contrivance, as a ring moving on horizontal pivots, for securing free motion in suspension, or for suspending anything, as a chronometer, so that it may keep a constant position or remain in equilibrium.
  • noun Joined or interlocked work whose parts move within each other, as a bridle-bit or interlocked rings; a gemel-ring.
  • noun A quaint piece of mechanism; a gimcrack.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A contrivance for permitting a body to incline freely in all directions, or for suspending anything, as a barometer, ship's compass, chronometer, etc., so that it will remain plumb, or level, when its support is tipped, as by the rolling of a ship. It consists of a ring in which the body can turn on an axis through a diameter of the ring, while the ring itself is so pivoted to its support that it can turn about a diameter at right angles to the first.
  • noun (Mach.) a universal joint embodying the principle of the gimbal.
  • noun a single gimbal, as that by which the cockeye of the upper millstone is supported on the spindle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A device for suspending something, such as a ship's compass, so that it will remain level when its support is tipped.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an appliance that allows an object (such as a ship's compass) to remain horizontal even as its support tips

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of obsolete gemel, double ring; see gimmal.]

Support

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Examples

  • The gimbal is a collaborative development with Red Team sponsors HD Systems, Philips and KVH.

    Next grand challenge 2005

  • Although the alignment between Eagle and Columbia looked good, as the vehicles came together they experienced a potentially nasty phenomenon known as gimbal lock.

    First Man James R. Hansen 2005

  • Although the alignment between Eagle and Columbia looked good, as the vehicles came together they experienced a potentially nasty phenomenon known as gimbal lock.

    First Man James R. Hansen 2005

  • Although the alignment between Eagle and Columbia looked good, as the vehicles came together they experienced a potentially nasty phenomenon known as gimbal lock.

    First Man James R. Hansen 2005

  • Although the alignment between Eagle and Columbia looked good, as the vehicles came together they experienced a potentially nasty phenomenon known as gimbal lock.

    First Man James R. Hansen 2005

  • So then would be more of your value prop adding what your core capabilities are to that existing kind of gimbal just viewing technology?

    Software Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha 2009

  • “We also had a ride-rig, which was a computer-programmed gimbal, with the shell of a scorpioch on top of it,” says Davis.

    41 High Resolution Photos from Clash of the Titans | /Film 2010

  • Each tube even has a removable pin that allows me to schlep offshore rods with gimbal-lock butts without them swinging.

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  • Joe Carnahan: I put those guys -- God bless them -- on a gimbal that rotated on a 30-foot fuselage that spun at a very high rate of speed.

    Tribeca Film: Call of the Wild: Masculinity and Mother Nature in The Grey Tribeca Film 2012

  • Each tube even has a removable pin that allows me to schlep offshore rods with gimbal-lock butts without them swinging.

    Turn Your Pick-Up Into a Fishing Machine 2009

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