detent

English

Etymology

From French détente, from Latin tendō (“to stretch”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈtɛnt/, /ˈdiːtɛnt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnt
• Hyphenation: de‧tent

Noun

detent (plural detents)

1. That which locks or unlocks a movement; a catch (stopping mechanism), pawl, or dog; especially, in clockwork, the catch which locks and unlocks the wheelwork in striking.
   • 1972, Mayer et al., United States Patent 3760640, abstract:

     A UHF tuner having 70 detent positions with fine tuning capability at all locations. Coarse tuning is accomplished via a toothed, detented disk and a spirally-extending rim having a follower lever operable therewith.

Related terms

• détente

Translations

which locks or unlocks a movement

• Bulgarian: ограничи́тел (bg) m (ograničítel)
• German: Sperrklinke f, Arretierung (de) f

Verb

detent (third-person singular simple present detents, present participle detenting, simple past and past participle detented)

1. The action of locking or unlocking movement by way of a detent mechanism

Further reading

• “detent”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “detent”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “detent”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “detent”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• detent on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• netted, tented