Crossword clues for mainspring
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
mainspring \main"spring`\, n. The principal or most important spring in a piece of mechanism, especially the moving spring of a watch or clock or the spring in a gunlock which impels the hammer. Hence: (Fig.) The chief or most powerful motive; the efficient cause of action; as, the mainspring of action.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 The principal spring of a clockwork mechanism, that drives it by uncoiling. 2 (context figuratively English) The most important reason for something.
WordNet
n. the most important spring in a mechanical device (especially a clock or watch); as it uncoils it drives the mechanism
Wikipedia
A mainspring is a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon - commonly spring steel - used as a power source in mechanical watches, some clocks, and other clockwork mechanisms. Winding the timepiece, by turning a knob or key, stores energy in the mainspring by twisting the spiral tighter. The force of the mainspring then turns the clock's wheels as it unwinds, until the next winding is needed. The adjectives wind-up and spring-powered refer to mechanisms powered by mainsprings, which also include kitchen timers, music boxes, wind-up toys and clockwork radios.
Mainspring is the third novel from writer Jay Lake. It is a clockpunk science fiction/ fantasy novel, of the subgenre steampunk.
This novel is followed by the 2008 sequel Escapement and the 2010 sequel Pinion.
Usage examples of "mainspring".
The scar on the stomach had turned a dull red as if alive all by itself and it occurred to Joe that it might be the mainspring, the potent source of that insanity.
Generosity was a marked trait of his character, an ennobling principle of his nature, the motive power of his actions, and the mainspring of his life.
Raymond was a type Harker had seen before, and respected: the quietly intense sort that remained in the background, accumulating intensity like a tightening mainspring, capable of displaying any amount of energy or drive when it was needed.
The basic conflict of the story, the mainspring that drives it onward, is an emotional conflict inside the mind of the protagonist.
Existential and Rankian positions that the fear of death is the mainspring of human motivation and that man needs to belong to a system of ideas in which mystery exists.
The Ones Who Kept The Machine Functioning Smoothly, the ones who poured the very best butter over the cams and mainsprings of the culture.
The Ones Who Kept the Machine Functioning Smoothly, the ones who poured the very best butter over the cams and mainsprings of the culture.
And that rug, the very mainspring of the startling things which followed, was thus carelessly thrown on to the carriage, and off we went.
When the mainspring of her life her love for Burgo Smyth had been broken, for reasons which were still obscure to Jemima, Imogen Swain had somehow ceased to exist.
Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill did not know a mainspring from a pendulum, and could not have cared less about either, but he needed information from Major Stokes so it was politic to show an interest.
But that is highly questionable and disputable, for it transforms the natural and morally neutral impulse which is the mainspring of music into a 'Life' that summons, calls, commands us, and wants to impart good lessons to us.
Eileen's colour rose and her eyes smouldered with the resentment which divas now perhaps the mainspring of her life.
I sang about the Big Wheel going by faith, and the Little Wheel going by the Grace of God, and I sang about Bones, Dry Bones, and I sang endlessly that I wasn't goin' to grieve my Lord no more, no more, and as I sang I reflected that in all of this hokum there was none of the sinewy theology on which I was brought up, and which has been the mainspring of my life.
The secret mechanics of The System were hopelessly intricate, its parlance -- splitting, doubling down, hi-lo differential -- an insider's code, but the mainspring seemed to involve a species of card counting, a task Jessie could hardly imagine Dow mastering since whatever stores of patience and concentration he had managed to haul down with him from the north country had been thoroughly consumed out here in the great southwestern fry pan of loss and disappointment.
But I felt quite at ease unwinding the mainsprings of the Russian autocracy.