whippletree
English
Alternative forms
- whipple-tree
- whipple tree
Noun
whippletree (plural whippletrees)
- a wooden crossbar for a plough or carriage, pivoted in the middle, from which traces are fastened to a draught animal.
- 1889, George E. Blakelee, Blakelee's Industrial Cyclopedia, page 364:
- The single whippletree should have a chain attached to bring it out even with the other two.
- 1964, Albert C. Leighton, Early Medieval Transport, page 128:
- Like the whippletree, the wheelbarrow only became known in the Middle Ages.
- 2016, Steven Vogel, Why the Wheel Is Round: Muscles, Technology, and How We Make Things Move, →ISBN:
- Note the two-horse whippletree on the beam at the lower left. (A whippletree, of which this is the simplest possible, balances the load on the animals.)
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Synonyms
- splinter bar
- swinglebar
- swingletree
- whiffletree (US)