Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Torsion   /tˈɔrʃən/   Listen
noun
Torsion  n.  
1.
The act of turning or twisting, or the state of being twisted; the twisting or wrenching of a body by the exertion of a lateral force tending to turn one end or part of it about a longitudinal axis, while the other is held fast or turned in the opposite direction.
2.
(Mech.) That force with which a thread, wire, or rod of any material, returns, or tends to return, to a state of rest after it has been twisted; torsibility.
Angle of torsion (of a curve) (Geom.), the indefinitely small angle between two consecutive osculating planes of a curve of double curvature.
Moment of torsion (Mech.) the moment of a pair of equal and opposite couples which tend to twist a body.
Torsion balance (Physics.), an instrument for estimating very minute forces, as electric or magnetic attractions and repulsions, by the torsion of a very slender wire or fiber having at its lower extremity a horizontal bar or needle, upon which the forces act.
Torsion scale, a scale for weighing in which the fulcra of the levers or beams are strained wires or strips acting by torsion.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Torsion" Quotes from Famous Books



... knob. The apparatus was virtually a Leyden jar, the two coatings of which were the two spheres, with a thick and variable insulator between them. The amount of charge in each jar was determined by bringing a proof-plane into contact with its knob and measuring by a torsion balance the charge taken away. He first charged one of his instruments, and then dividing the charge with the other, found that when air intervened in both cases the charge was equally divided. But when shellac, sulphur, or spermaceti was interposed between the two spheres ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... various constants of adjustment was deferred to the end of the year. The immediate results of observation, however, began to excite suspicion; and after a time it was found that, in spite of the length of the suspending wire (about 8 feet) the torsion-coefficient was not much less than 1/6. The wires were promptly dismounted, and silk skeins substituted for them. With these, the torsion-coefficient is about 1/210.'—The Dip-Instrument, which had given great trouble by the irregularities ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... substances experimented upon, if electrical conductors, must have acquired this state; and yet no evidence of attractive or repulsive powers has been observed. I have placed copper and silver discs, very delicately suspended on torsion balances in vacuo near to the poles of very powerful magnets, yet have not been able to observe the least attractive or ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... most sovereign and approved remedy. The mal caduco, cramps, convulsions, paralysies, epilepsies, tremor-cordia, retired nerves, ill vapours of the spleen, stopping of the liver, the stone, the strangury, hernia ventosa, iliaca passio; stops a disenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts: and cures melancholia hypocondriaca, being taken and applied according to my printed receipt. [POINTING TO HIS BILL AND HIS VIAL.] For, this is the physician, this the medicine; ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... work of Gustave Moreau, conceived on no Scriptural data, Des Esseintes saw at last the realisation of the strange, superhuman Salome that he had dreamed. She was no more the mere dancing-girl who, with the corrupt torsion of her limbs, tears a cry of desire from an old man; who, with her eddying breasts, her palpitating body, her quivering thighs, breaks the energy, melts the will, of a king; she has become the symbolic deity ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com