capstan
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
Etymology [edit]
French cabestan, from Spanish cabestrante, cabrestante, from cabestrar to bind with a halter, from cabestrohalter, from Latin capistrum halter, from capere to hold (see capacious); or perhaps the Spanish is from Latin caper goat + -stans, present participle of stare to stand; confer French chèvre she-goat, also a machine for raising heavy weights.
Noun [edit]
capstan (plural capstans)
- (nautical) A vertical cleated drum or cylinder, revolving on an upright spindle, and surmounted by a drumhead with sockets for bars or levers. It is much used, especially on shipboard, for moving or raising heavy weights or exerting great power by traction upon a rope or cable, passing around the drum. It is operated either by steam power or by a number of men walking around the capstan, each pushing on the end of a lever fixed in its socket.
- (electronics) A rotating spindle used to move recording tape through the mechanism of a tape recorder.
Translations [edit]
vertical cleated drum or cylinder
part of a tape recorder
Derived terms [edit]
- capstan bar - one of the long bars or levers by which the capstan is worked; a handspike.
- pawl the capstan - to drop the pawls so that they will catch in the notches of the pawl ring, and prevent the capstan from turning back.
- rig the capstan - to prepare the for use, by putting the bars in the sockets.
- surge the capstan - to slack the tension of the rope or cable wound around it.
