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Showing results for rack and pinion. Search instead for Jack-at-a-pinch.

rack and pinion

1 American  

noun

Machinery, Automotive.

  1. rack15a

rack-and-pinion 2 American  
[rak-uhn-pin-yuhn] / ˈræk ənˈpɪn yən /

adjective

  1. of or relating to a mechanism in which a rack engages a pinion.

    rack-and-pinion steering.
rack-and-pinion British  

noun

  1. a device for converting rotary into linear motion and vice versa, in which a gearwheel (the pinion) engages with a flat toothed bar (the rack)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

adjective

  1. (of a type of steering gear in motor vehicles) having a track rod with a rack along part of its length that engages with a pinion attached to the steering column

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of rack-and-pinion

First recorded in 1900–05

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.