Crossword clues for eccentric
eccentric
- Odd way of talking doesn't begin in Morecambe
- Odd fish set to one side
- Odd charmer back without a penny from US
- Strange boy steals college money
- Slightly strange
- At first clipped way of speaking in e.g. Morecambe is a bit odd
- Being fixated with what Europe used to be is odd
- Idle around; copy in naked gents - it's unorthodox
- Offbeat or unconventional
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Eccentric \Ec*cen"tric\ ([e^]k*s[e^]n"tr[i^]k), a. [F. excentrique, formerly also spelled eccentrique, fr. LL. eccentros out of the center, eccentric, Gr. 'e`kkentros; 'ek out of + ke`ntron center. See Ex-, and Center, and cf. Excentral.]
Deviating or departing from the center, or from the line of a circle; as, an eccentric or elliptical orbit; pertaining to deviation from the center or from true circular motion.
Not having the same center; -- said of circles, ellipses, spheres, etc., which, though coinciding, either in whole or in part, as to area or volume, have not the same center; -- opposed to concentric.
(Mach.) Pertaining to an eccentric; as, the eccentric rod in a steam engine.
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Not coincident as to motive or end.
His own ends, which must needs be often eccentric to those of his master.
--Bacon. -
Deviating from stated methods, usual practice, or established forms or laws; deviating from an appointed sphere or way; departing from the usual course; irregular; anomalous; odd; as, eccentric conduct. ``This brave and eccentric young man.'' --Macaulay. He shines eccentric, like a comet's blaze. --Savage. Eccentric anomaly. (Astron.) See Anomaly. Eccentric chuck (Mach.), a lathe chuck so constructed that the work held by it may be altered as to its center of motion, so as to produce combinations of eccentric combinations of eccentric circles. Eccentric gear. (Mach.)
The whole apparatus, strap, and other parts, by which the motion of an eccentric is transmitted, as in the steam engine.
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A cogwheel set to turn about an eccentric axis used to give variable rotation.
Eccentric hook or Eccentric gab, a hook-shaped journal box on the end of an eccentric rod, opposite the strap.
Eccentric rod, the rod that connects an eccentric strap with any part to be acted upon by the eccentric.
Eccentric sheave, or Eccentric pulley, an eccentric.
Eccentric strap, the ring, operating as a journal box, that encircles and receives motion from an eccentric; -- called also eccentric hoop.
Syn: Irregular; anomalous; singular; odd; peculiar; erratic; idiosyncratic; strange; whimsical.
Eccentric \Ec*cen"tric\ ([e^]k*s[e^]n"tr[i^]k), n.
A circle not having the same center as another contained in some measure within the first.
One who, or that which, deviates from regularity; an anomalous or irregular person or thing.
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(Astron.)
In the Ptolemaic system, the supposed circular orbit of a planet about the earth, but with the earth not in its center.
A circle described about the center of an elliptical orbit, with half the major axis for radius.
--Hutton.
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(Mach.) A disk or wheel so arranged upon a shaft that the center of the wheel and that of the shaft do not coincide. It is used for operating valves in steam engines, and for other purposes. The motion derived is precisely that of a crank having the same throw.
Back eccentric, the eccentric that reverses or backs the valve gear and the engine.
Fore eccentric, the eccentric that imparts a forward motion to the valve gear and the engine.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1550s, from Middle French eccentrique and directly from Medieval Latin eccentricus (noun and adjective; see eccentric (n.)). Of persons, figurative sense of "odd, whimsical" first recorded 1620s. "Eccentric is applied to acts which are the effects of tastes, prejudices, judgments, etc., not merely different from those of ordinary people, but largely unaccountable and often irregular ..." [Century Dictionary].
early 15c., "eccentric circle or orbit," originally a term in Ptolemaic astronomy, "circle or orbit not having the Earth precisely at its center," from Middle French eccentrique and directly from Medieval Latin eccentricus (noun and adjective), from Greek ekkentros "out of the center" (as opposed to concentric), from ek "out" (see ex-) + kentron "center" (see center (n.)). Meaning "odd or whimsical person" is attested by 1817 (S.W. Ryley, "The Itinerant, or Memoirs of an Actor").\n\nJune 4 [1800].
--Died in the streets in Newcastle, William Barron, an eccentric, well known for many years by the name of \nBilly Pea-pudding. [John Sykes, "Local Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events which have Occurred Exclusively in the Counties of Durham and Northumberland, Town and County of Newcastle Upon Tyne, and Berwick Upon Tweed," Newcastle, 1824] \n
Wiktionary
a. 1 Not at or in the centre; away from the centre. 2 Not perfectly circular; elliptical. 3 Having a different center; not concentric. 4 (context of a person English) deviating from the norm; behaving unexpectedly or differently. 5 (context physiology of a motion English) Against or in the opposite direction of contraction of a muscle (e.g., such as results from flexion of the lower arm (bending of the elbow joint) by an external force while contracting the triceps and other elbow extensor muscles to control that movement; opening of the jaw while flexing the masseter). 6 Having different goals or motives. n. 1 One who does not behave like others. 2 A disk or wheel with its axis off centre, giving a reciprocating motion. 3 (context slang English) A kook.
WordNet
adj. conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual; "restaurants of bizarre design--one like a hat, another like a rabbit"; "famed for his eccentric spelling"; "a freakish combination of styles"; "his off-the-wall antics"; "the outlandish clothes of teenagers"; "outre and affected stage antics" [syn: bizarre, freakish, freaky, flaky, off-the-wall, outlandish, outre]
not having a common center; not concentric; "eccentric circles" [syn: nonconcentric] [ant: concentric]
Wikipedia
In mechanical engineering, an eccentric is a circular disk (eccentric sheave) solidly fixed to a rotating axle with its centre offset from that of the axle (hence the word "eccentric", out of the centre).
It is most often employed in steam engines and used to convert rotary into linear reciprocating motion in order to drive a sliding valve or a pump ram. In order to do so an eccentric usually has a groove at its circumference around which is closely fitted a circular collar (eccentric strap) attached to which an eccentric rod is suspended in such a way that its other end can impart the required reciprocating motion. A return crank fulfils the same function except that it can only work at the end of an axle or on the outside of a wheel whereas an eccentric can also be fitted to the body of the axle between the wheels. Unlike a cam, which also converts rotary into linear motion at almost any rate of acceleration and deceleration, an eccentric or return crank can only impart simple harmonic motion.
Usage examples of "eccentric".
They must have come the back way, the same as the intruders, where the farm abutted a thousand acre exotic game preserve owned by some eccentric zillionaire.
And hard on the heels of that thought, she had to wonder if she could have possibly allowed her agoraphobia to become a convenient excuse to justify her career choices and a lifestyle some would consider eccentric.
With a thought, he commanded the doors to the aviary to close silently behind him as he followed his eccentric but benevolent tormentor.
The bookseller, douce man, had seen too many eccentric customers to be shocked by the vehemence of his questioner.
As Cuerpo, the eccentric Latin, he was a figure to inspire anything but amour.
He was a somewhat eccentric man, so I did not take offence, and had almost forgotten all about it when chance led me to the Marylebone Theatre one evening.
From being an eccentric and outspoken old man in his dotage, he had relapsed into an eccentric and outspoken old man with more faculties at his command than his age warranted.
But if I am no moth-eaten alchemist, neither am I some newfangled astronomer who feigns eccentrics and epicycles and suchlike in order to save the phenomena, when he knows full well that there are no such engines within the orbs.
In his first three appearances, the Escapist along with his eccentric company had toured a thinly fictionalized Europe, in which he wowed the Razi elites of Zothenia, Gothsylvania, Draconia, and other pseudonymous dark bastions of the Iron Chain, while secretly going about his real business of arranging jailbreaks for resistance leaders and captured British airmen, helping great scientists and thinkers out of the clutches of the evil dictator, Attila Haxoff, and freeing captives, missionaries, and prisoners of war.
Eccentric, sensual, a bad logician, vicious, a fool, indiscreet, and ungrateful, all this appeared in his letter, for after telling me that he should be badly off without Count Asquin who was seventy years old, and had books and money, he devoted two pages to abusing him, telling me of his faults and follies.
I am sure that if Venus had been in truth a goddess, she would have made the eccentric Greek, who first dared to paint her cross-eyed, feel the weight of her anger.
I was beginning to understand my eccentric host, and, to flatter him, I answered that he praised me more than I deserved, and that my appetite was inferior to his.
I told him, in my turn, all I knew of this truly eccentric individual.
If the conclave took the eccentric whim of making him pope, Christ would never have an uglier vicar.
The roof of the mouth was another hyperboloid, hollow and eccentric to the first.