Gear (definition)

(definition) by Webster 1913

(unvotable) (I like it!)

Tue Dec 21 1999 at 23:51:28

57 ¶, 93 s, 382 w, 3368 c

Gear (?), n. [OE. gere, ger, AS. gearwe clothing, adornment, armor, fr. gearo, gearu, ready, yare; akin to OHG. garawi, garwi ornament, dress. See Yare, and cf. Garb dress.]

Clothing; garments; ornaments.

Array thyself in thy most gorgeous gear. Spenser.

Goods; property; household stuff.

Chaucer.

Homely gear and common ware. Robynson (More's Utopia)

Whatever is prepared for use or wear; manufactured stuff or material.

Clad in a vesture of unknown gear. Spenser.

The harness of horses or cattle; trapping.

Warlike accouterments.

[Scot.]

Jamieson.

Manner; custom; behavior.

[Obs.]

Chaucer.

Business matters; affairs; concern.

[Obs.]

Thus go they both together to their gear. Spenser.

8. Mech. (a)

A toothed wheel, or cogwheel; as, a spur gear, or a bevel gear; also, toothed wheels, collectively.

(b)

An apparatus for performing a special function; gearing; as, the feed gear of a lathe.

(c)

Engagement of parts with each other; as, in gear; out of gear.

9. pl. Naut.

See 1st Jeer (b).

10.

Anything worthless; stuff; nonsense; rubbish.

[Obs. or Prov. Eng.]

Wright.

That servant of his that confessed and uttered this gear was an honest man. Latimer.

Bever gear. See Bevel gear. -- Core gear, a mortise gear, or its skeleton. See Mortise wheel, under Mortise. -- Expansion gear Steam Engine, the arrangement of parts for cutting off steam at a certain part of the stroke, so as to leave it to act upon the piston expansively; the cut-off. See under Expansion. -- Feed gear. See Feed motion, under Feed, n. -- Gear cutter, a machine or tool for forming the teeth of gear wheels by cutting. -- Gear wheel, any cogwheel. -- Running gear. See under Running. -- To throw in, ∨ out of, gear Mach., to connect or disconnect (wheelwork or couplings, etc.); to put in, or out of, working relation.

Gear (?) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Geared (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Gearing.]

To dress; to put gear on; to harness.

2. Mach.

To provide with gearing.

Double geared, driven through twofold compound gearing, to increase the force or speed; -- said of a machine.

Gear, v. i. Mach.

To be in, or come into, gear.