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Saturday, October 23, 2010

rod

rod

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See also Rod, röd, and rød

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[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

Old English (Anglo-Saxon) rodd, Norse rudda

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Noun

rod (plural rods)
  1. A straight, round stick, shaft, bar, cane, or staff.
    The circus strong man proved his strength by bending an iron rod, and then straightening it.

  2. (fishing) A long slender usually tapering pole used for angling; fishing rod.
    When I hooked a snake and not a fish, I got so scared I dropped my rod in the water.

  3. A stick, pole, or bundle of switches or twigs (such as a birch), used for personal defense or to administer corporal punishment by whipping.

  4. An implement resembling and/or supplanting a rod (particularly a cane) that is used for corporal punishment, and metonymically called the rod, regardless of its actual shape and composition.  [quotations ▼]
    • The judge imposed on the thief a sentence of fifteen strokes with the rod.

  5. A stick used to measure distance, by using its established length or task-specific temporary marks along its length, or by dint of specific graduated marks.  [quotations ▼]
    • I notched a rod and used it to measure the length of rope to cut.

  6. (archaic) A unit of length. Equal to a pole, a perch, ¼ chain, 5½ yards, 16½ feet, or exactly 5.0292 meters.
    1865 Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod [1]
    • In one of the villages I saw the next summer a cow tethered by a rope six rods long [...]

  7. An implement held vertically and viewed through an optical surveying instrument such as a transit, used to measure distance in land surveying and construction layout; an engineer's rod, surveyor's rod, leveling rod, ranging rod. The modern (US) engineer's or surveyor's rod commonly is eight or ten feet long and often designed to extend higher. In former times a surveyor's rod often was a single wooden pole or composed of multiple sectioned and socketed pieces, and besides serving as a sighting target was used to measure distance on the ground horizontally, hence for convenience was of one rod or pole in length, that is, 5½ yards.

  8. (archaic) A unit of area equal to a square rod, 30¼ square yards or 1/160 acre.
    The house had a small yard of about six rods in size.

  9. A straight bar that unites moving parts of a machine, for holding parts together as a connecting rod or for transferring power as a drive-shaft.
    The engine threw a rod, and then went to pieces before our eyes, springs and coils shooting in all


[edit] Translations

[hide ▲]straight round stick, shaft, or bar


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