pendulum
Other forms: pendulums
A pendulum is something hanging and swinging freely from a fixed point. A grandfather clock might use for timekeeping a pendulum that swings back and forth.
Pendulum comes from the Latin word pendulous, meaning "hanging down." If someone hangs a pocket watch in front of you and swings it back and forth, saying, "You're getting very sleepy," they're mimicking the movement of a pendulum. We also use the word pendulum to describe a situation moving between two poles or across a spectrum, like the balance of power in a multiparty political system.
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an apparatus consisting of an object mounted so that it swings freely under the influence of gravitytypes:Foucault pendulumpendulum with a long wire; can swing in any direction; the change in the swing plane demonstrates the earth's rotationmetronomeclicking pendulum indicates the exact tempo of a piece of musiccompound pendulum, physical pendulumpendulum consisting of an actual object allowed to rotate freely around a horizontal axissimple penduluma hypothetical pendulum suspended by a weightless frictionless thread of constant lengthballistic penduluma physical pendulum consisting of a large mass suspended from a rod; when it is struck by a projectile its displacement is used to measure the projectile's velocityclock penduluma physical pendulum used to regulate a clockwork mechanism
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Vocabulary lists containing pendulum
Review this list of words related to force and motion and make a big impact on your vocabulary. With a little time and energy, you'll learn all about friction, gravity, momentum, and more. Resistance is futile!
In this short story, Ambrose Bierce plays with plot structure and narrative time as he explores the psychology of a condemned man. Read the full text here. Here is a link to our list for A Horseman in the Sky by Ambrose Bierce.