pulley

pulley

See also: Pulley

English

A fixed pulley assembly

Etymology

From Middle English puly, poley, from Old French poulie, polie (“a pulley, windlass”), from Medieval Latin polidia, plural mistaken for the feminine of neuter polidium, from Ancient Greek πολίδιον (polídion, “little pivot”), diminutive of πόλος (pólos, “pivot, hinge, axis”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to turn”). Associated with pull (verb) by folk etymology.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpʊli/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʊli

Noun

pulley (plural pulleys)

1. (engineering, countable) One of the simple machines; a sheave, a wheel with a grooved rim, in which a pulled rope or chain lifts an object (more useful when two or more pulleys are used together, as in a block and tackle arrangement, such that a small force moving through a greater distance can exert a larger force through a smaller distance).

Hypernyms

• hoist
• simple machine, Simple machine

Hyponyms

• polyspast
• block and tackle
• winch

Meronyms

• bearing
• chain
• rigging
• rope
• wheel

Coordinate terms

• crane
• inclined plane
• lever
• screw
• wedge

Derived terms

• pulley block

Translations

one of simple machines

Arabic: مَنْجُور‎ (manjūr) Armenian: ճախարակ (hy) (čaxarak) Basque: txirrika (eu), polea (eu) Bulgarian: макара́ (bg) f (makará), скрипе́ц m (skripéc) Catalan: politja (ca) f, corriola (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 滑車／滑车 (zh) (huáchē), 滑輪／滑轮 (zh) (huálún) Czech: kladka (cs) f Danish: trisse Dutch: katrol (nl) Esperanto: pulio (eo) Finnish: väkipyörä (fi), pylpyrä (fi) French: poulie (fr) f Georgian: ჭოჭონაქი (č̣oč̣onaki) German: Rolle (de) f Greek: τροχαλία (el) f (trochalía) Ancient: τροχιλεῖον n (trokhileîon) Hebrew: גלגלת‎ (he) (galgelet) Hungarian: csiga (hu) Icelandic: trissa f, talía f Indonesian: katrol (id) Irish: ulóg f, puilín m Italian: carrucola (it) f, puleggia (it) f Japanese: 滑車 (ja) (かっしゃ, kassha) Khmer: រ៉ក (km) (rɑɑk) Korean: 도르래 (doreurae) Latin: trochlea f Maori: tauru Mon: ရံက် Norwegian: Bokmål: trinse m or f, trisse m or f Papiamentu: katròl Portuguese: roldana (pt) f Romanian: scripete (ro) m Russian: блок (ru) m (blok), шкив (ru) m (škiv) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: чекрк m Roman: čekrk (sh) m Slovak: kladka f Slovene: škripec (sl) m Spanish: polea (es) f, roldana (es) f Swedish: trissa (sv) Tagalog: tangkalag, kalo (tl) Telugu: కప్పీ (te) (kappī), గిలక (te) (gilaka) Thai: รอก (th) (rɔ̂ɔk) Turkish: makara (tr) Ukrainian: блок (uk) m (blok) Vietnamese: ròng rọc (vi)

References

Verb

pulley (third-person singular simple present pulleys, present participle pulleying, simple past and past participle pulleyed)

1. (transitive) To raise or lift by means of a pulley.
   • 1655, James Howell, “To Capt. Francis Bacon”, in Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren. […], volume (please specify the page), 3rd edition, London: […] Humphrey Mos[e]ley, […], OCLC 84295516:

     [a mine]is digg'd out with ease, being soft, and is between a white Clay and Chalk at first; but being pulley'd up with the open Air, it receives a crusty kind of hardness