ESCAPEMENTS
Noun
escapements
plural of escapement
Source: Wiktionary
ESCAPEMENT
Es*cape"ment, n. Etym: [Cf. F. échappement. See Escape.]
1. The act of escaping; escape. [R.]
2. Way of escape; vent. [R.]
An escapement for youthful high spirits. G. Eliot.
3. The contrivance in a timepiece which connects the train of wheel
work with the pendulum or balance, giving to the latter the impulse
by which it is kept in vibration; -- so called because it allows a
tooth to escape from a pallet at each vibration.
Note: Escapements are of several kinds, as the vertical, or verge, or
crown, escapement, formerly used in watches, in which two pallets on
the balance arbor engage with a crown wheel; the anchor escapement,
in which an anchor-shaped piece carries the pallets; -- used in
common clocks (both are called recoil escapements, from the recoil of
the escape wheel at each vibration); the cylinder escapement, having
an open-sided hollow cylinder on the balance arbor to control the
escape wheel; the duplex escapement, having two sets of teeth on the
wheel; the lever escapement, which is a kind of detached escapement,
because the pallets are on a lever so arranged that the balance which
vibrates it is detached during the greater part of its vibration and
thus swings more freely; the detent escapement, used in chronometers;
the remontoir escapement, in which the escape wheel is driven by an
independent spring or weight wound up at intervals by the clock
train, -- sometimes used in astronomical clocks. When the shape of an
escape-wheel tooth is such that it falls dead on the pallet without
recoil, it forms a deadbeat escapement.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition