Balance wheel: Definition and part of speech

Balance wheel

A wheel which imparts regularity to the movements of any engine or machine; a fly wheel.
A wheel which regulates the beats or pulses of a watch or chronometer, answering to the pendulum of a clock; — often called simply a balance.
A ratchet-shaped scape wheel, which in some watches is acted upon by the axis of the balance wheel proper (in those watches called a balance).

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.

a. Resembling an acorn; — applied to a group of barnacles having shells shaped like acorns. See Acornshell, and Barnacle.

A variety of spinel ruby, of a pale rose red, or inclining to orange. See Spinel.

n. The pomegranate tree (Punica granatum). The bark of the root, the rind of the fruit, and the flowers are used medicinally.

n. A movement in dancing. See Balance, v. i., S.
n. An apparatus for weighing.
n. Act of weighing mentally; comparison; estimate.
n. Equipoise between the weights in opposite scales.
n. The state of being in equipoise; equilibrium; even adjustment; steadiness.
n. An equality between the sums total of the two sides of an account; as, to bring one’s accounts to a balance; — also, the excess on either side; as, the balance of an account.
n. A balance wheel, as of a watch, or clock. See Balance wheel (in the Vocabulary).
n. The constellation Libra.
n. The seventh sign in the Zodiac, called Libra, which the sun enters at the equinox in September.
n. To contract, as a sail, into a narrower compass; as, to balance the boom mainsail.
1n. 1 A movement in dancing. See Balance, v. i., S.
1n. 1 An apparatus for weighing.