Category:Gear

Gear, n. Etym: [OE. gere, ger, AS. gearwe clothing, adornment, armor, fr. gearo, gearu, ready, yare; akin to OHG. garawi, garwi ornament, dress. See Yare, and cf. Garb dress.]

1. Clothing; garments; ornaments. Array thyself in thy most gorgeous gear. Spenser.

2. Goods; property; household stuff. Chaucer. Homely gear and common ware. Robynson (More's Utopia)

3. Whatever is prepared for use or wear; manufactured stuff or material. Clad in a vesture of unknown gear. Spenser.

4. The harness of horses or cattle; trapping.

5. Warlike accouterments. [Scot.] Jamieson.

6. Manner; custom; behavior. [Obs.] Chaucer.

7. Business matters; affairs; concern. [Obs.] Thus go they both together to their gear. Spenser.

8. (Mech.) (a) A toothed wheel, or cogwheel; as, a spur gear, or a bevel gear; also, toothed wheels, collectively. (b) An apparatus for performing a special function; gearing; as, the feed gear of a lathe. (c) Engagement of parts with each other; as, in gear; out of gear.

9. pl. (Naut.)

Defn: See 1st Jeer (b).

10. Anything worthless; stuff; nonsense; rubbish. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] Wright. That servant of his that confessed and uttered this gear was an honest man. Latimer. Bever gear. See Bevel gear. -- Core gear, a mortise gear, or its skeleton. See Mortise wheel, under Mortise. -- Expansion gear (Steam Engine), the arrangement of parts for cutting off steam at a certain part of the stroke, so as to leave it to act upon the piston expansively; the cut-off. See under Expansion. -- Feed gear. See Feed motion, under Feed, n. -- Gear cutter, a machine or tool for forming the teeth of gear wheels by cutting. -- Gear wheel, any cogwheel. -- Running gear. See under Running. -- To throw in, or out of, gear (Mach.), to connect or disconnect (wheelwork or couplings, etc.); to put in, or out of, working relation.

gear Gear v. t. [imp. & p. p. Geared; p. pr. & vb. n. Gearing.]

1. To dress; to put gear on; to harness.

2. (Mach.)

Defn: To provide with gearing. Double geared, driven through twofold compound gearing, to increase the force or speed; -- said of a machine.

gear Gear, v. i. (Mach.)

Defn: To be in, or come into, gear.