See also: Lever

English edit

 
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A lever
 
A lever diagram

Pronunciation edit

Etymology 1 edit

From Middle English lever, levore, levour, from Old French leveor, leveur (a lifter, lever (also Old French and French levier)), from Latin levātor (a lifter), from levō (to raise).

Noun edit

lever (plural levers)

  1. (mechanics) A rigid piece which is capable of turning about one point, or axis (the fulcrum), and in which are two or more other points where forces are applied; — used for transmitting and modifying force and motion.
    1. Specifically, a bar of metal, wood or other rigid substance, used to exert a pressure, or sustain a weight, at one point of its length, by receiving a force or power at a second, and turning at a third on a fixed point called a fulcrum. It is usually named as the first of the six mechanical powers, and is of three kinds, according as either the fulcrum F, the weight W, or the power P, respectively, is situated between the other two, as in the figures.
  2. A small such piece to trigger or control a mechanical device (like a button).
  3. (mechanics) A bar, as a capstan bar, applied to a rotatory piece to turn it.
    • 2012 March, Henry Petroski, “Opening Doors”, in American Scientist[1], volume 100, number 2, pages 112–3:
      A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place.
  4. (mechanics) An arm on a rock shaft, to give motion to the shaft or to obtain motion from it.
  5. (obsolete, except in generalized senses below) A crowbar.
    • 1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, IV.1:
      My lord, I brained him with a lever my neighbour lent me, and he stood by and cried, ‘Strike home, old boy!’
Derived terms edit
Related terms edit
Translations edit
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb edit

lever (third-person singular simple present levers, present participle levering, simple past and past participle levered)

  1. (transitive) To move with a lever.
    With great effort and a big crowbar I managed to lever the beam off the floor.
    • 1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter VII, in Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC:
      Someone found a pick and levered a burst plank out of the floor, and in a few minutes we had got a fire alight and our drenched clothes were steaming.
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To use, operate or move (something) like a lever (physically).
    • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, published 2001, Part Two, Chapter 1:
      Suddenly he had levered himself up from the sofa, rocking the lame man violently, and was walking towards the receptionist.
  3. (figuratively, transitive) To use (something) like a lever (in an abstract sense).
    • 2001 April 9, Joshua Cooper Ramo, “Bagging the Butcher”, in Time:
      He was a man who levered his way from small-time communist hack to political power by tapping into the most potent vein of historical juice in the Balkans: nationalism.
    • 2013 December 8, Robert McCrum, “Biographies of the year — review”, in The Guardian:
      Credited with pioneering the detective novel, Collins has attracted many biographers over the years, drawn to his extraordinary life and work in the hope of levering open a new understanding of the Victorian psyche.
  4. (chiefly UK, finance) To increase the share of debt in the capitalization of a business.
    • 1989 June 26, “Corporate America wants its privacy”, in Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
      "The equity holders want you to 'lever up,' use as much debt as you can," said David Stanley, chairman of Kansas City-based Payless Cashways,
Derived terms edit
Translations edit

Etymology 2 edit

From Middle English lever, comparative of leve, leef (dear, beloved, lief), equivalent to lief +‎ -er. Related to German lieber (rather).

Alternative forms edit

Adverb edit

lever (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) Rather.
Translations edit

Etymology 3 edit

Borrowed from French lever.

Noun edit

lever (plural levers)

  1. (rare) A levee.
    • 1742, Miss Robinson, Mrs. Delany's Letters, II.191:
      We do not appear at Phœbus's Levér.
    • 2011 September 21, Tim Blanning, “The reinvention of the night”, in Times Literary Supplement:
      Louis XIV’s day began with a lever at 9 and ended (officially) at around midnight.

Further reading edit

References edit

  1. ^ lever”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ lever”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
  3. ^ lever”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

Anagrams edit

Danish edit

 
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Etymology 1 edit

From Old Danish liuær, from Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *librō, cognate with English liver and German Leber. The Germanic word may be an irregular remodelling of the Proto-Indo-European word for "liver", *yókʷr̥, cf. Ancient Greek ἧπαρ (hêpar) and Latin iecur.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

lever c (singular definite leveren, plural indefinite levere)

  1. liver
Inflection edit

Etymology 2 edit

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): [ˈleːʋɐ], [ˈleːwɐ]

Verb edit

lever

  1. present of leve

Etymology 3 edit

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Pronunciation edit

Verb edit

lever or levér

  1. imperative of levere

Dutch edit

Pronunciation edit

Etymology 1 edit

From Middle Dutch lēvere, from Old Dutch *levara, from Proto-West Germanic *libru, from Proto-Germanic *librō.

Noun edit

lever f (plural levers, diminutive levertje n)

  1. liver
  2. edible animal liver as a dish or culinary ingredient
Derived terms edit
Descendants edit
  • Afrikaans: lewer
  • Berbice Creole Dutch: lefre
  • Negerhollands: leber
  • Aukan: lebii
  • Indonesian: lever
  • Saramaccan: lebèn
  • Sranan Tongo: lefre
    • Caribbean Javanese: léfer

Etymology 2 edit

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb edit

lever

  1. inflection of leveren:
    1. first-person singular present indicative
    2. imperative

French edit

Etymology edit

Inherited from Middle French lever, from Old French lever, from Latin levāre (to elevate), from levis (light, not heavy).

Pronunciation edit

Verb edit

lever

  1. (transitive) to raise, lift
    Antonym: baisser
  2. (reflexive) to rise, stand up
    Antonym: s’abaisser
  3. (reflexive) (of celestial bodies) To rise, come up
    Antonym: se coucher
    Le Soleil se lève à l’est et se couche à l’ouest.The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
  4. (reflexive) to get up (out of bed)
    Antonyms: se coucher, s’allonger
    Je me lève, je me lave.I get up, I wash.
  5. (reflexive, of fog, rain and etc) to clear, lift

Conjugation edit

This verb is conjugated like parler, except the -e- /ə/ of the second-to-last syllable becomes -è- /ɛ/ when the next vowel is a silent or schwa -e-, as in the third-person singular present indicative il lève and the third-person singular future indicative il lèvera.

Derived terms edit

Noun edit

lever m (plural levers)

  1. the act of getting up in the morning

Further reading edit

Anagrams edit

Hungarian edit

Etymology edit

le- +‎ ver

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): [ˈlɛvɛr]
  • Hyphenation: le‧ver
  • Rhymes: -ɛr

Verb edit

lever

  1. (transitive) to knock down

Conjugation edit

Derived terms edit

Further reading edit

  • lever in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (‘The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN

Indonesian edit

 
Indonesian Wikipedia has an article on:
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Etymology edit

From Dutch lever (liver), from Middle Dutch lēvere, from Old Dutch *levara, from Proto-Germanic *librō. Doublet of liver.

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): [ˈlɛvər]
  • Hyphenation: lè‧vêr

Noun edit

lèvêr (first-person possessive leverku, second-person possessive levermu, third-person possessive levernya)

  1. liver.
    Synonym: hati

Alternative forms edit

Further reading edit

Latin edit

Verb edit

lēver

  1. first-person singular present passive subjunctive of lēvō

Middle English edit

Etymology 1 edit

Comparative of leve (dear) of Germanic origin (compare German lieb) or lief.

Adverb edit

lever

  1. Rather.
    For him was lever have at his bed's head
    Twenty bookes, clad in black or red,
    . . . Than robes rich, or fithel, or gay sawtrie.
    The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
    But lever than this worldés good
    She would have wist how that it stood
    Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, John Gower.

Etymology 2 edit

Noun edit

lever

  1. Alternative form of lyvere (liver)

Etymology 3 edit

Noun edit

lever

  1. Alternative form of lyvere (living being)

Middle French edit

Etymology edit

From Old French lever.

Verb edit

lever

  1. to lift

Conjugation edit

  • Middle French conjugation varies from one text to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.

Descendants edit

References edit

  • Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (1881) (lever, supplement)

Norwegian Bokmål edit

 
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Pronunciation edit

  This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

Etymology 1 edit

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *librō, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (to smudge, stick), from *ley- (to be slimy, be sticky, glide).

Noun edit

lever m or f (definite singular leveren or levra, indefinite plural levere or levre or levrer, definite plural leverne or levrene)

  1. (anatomy) a liver
  2. liver (eaten as food)
Derived terms edit

Etymology 2 edit

Verb edit

lever

  1. present tense of leve
  2. imperative of levere

References edit

Norwegian Nynorsk edit

Etymology 1 edit

 
Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia nn

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *librō, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (to smudge, stick), from *ley- (to be slimy, be sticky, glide). Akin to English liver.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

lever f (definite singular levra, indefinite plural levrar or levrer, definite plural levrane or levrene)

  1. (anatomy) a liver
  2. liver (eaten as food)
Alternative forms edit
Derived terms edit

Etymology 2 edit

Pronunciation edit

Verb edit

lever

  1. present of leve

Further reading edit

Old French edit

Etymology edit

From Latin lēvāre, present active infinitive of lēvō.

Verb edit

lever

  1. to lift (up)
  2. (reflexive, se lever) to get up (get out of bed)

Conjugation edit

This verb conjugates as a first-group verb ending in -er. The forms that would normally end in *-v, *-vs, *-vt are modified to f, s, t. This verb has a stressed present stem liev distinct from the unstressed stem lev. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.

Descendants edit

Old Swedish edit

Etymology edit

From Old Norse hleifr, from Proto-Germanic *hlaibaz.

Noun edit

lēver m

  1. loaf, bread

Declension edit

Descendants edit

Swedish edit

 
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Pronunciation edit

Etymology 1 edit

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *librō, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (to smudge, stick), from *ley- (to be slimy, be sticky, glide).

Noun edit

lever c

  1. (anatomy) a liver
Declension edit
Declension of lever 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative lever levern levrar levrarna
Genitive levers leverns levrars levrarnas
Derived terms edit
Related terms edit
  • levra (clot, coagulate)

Etymology 2 edit

Verb edit

lever

  1. present indicative of leva

References edit