pendulum
A body suspended from a fixed support so that it swings freely back and forth under the influence of gravity, commonly used to regulate various devices such as clocks.
Other meanings
The tendency of a situation to oscillate (between two extremes).
A lamp, etc. suspended from a ceiling.
A kind of
- apparatus
Kinds of pendulum
- physical pendulum
- simple pendulum
Related words
- archipendulum
- pendulumlike
- ballistic pendulum
- compensation pendulum
- compound pendulum
- double pendulum
- Foucault pendulum
- Foucault's pendulum
- Kater's pendulum
- invariable pendulum
- pendulum arbitration
- pendulum clock
Word history
From Latin "pendulus" (hanging).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “pendulum” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.