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pawl

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.07 sec.
pawl: see ratchet and pawl ratchet and pawl, mechanical device that permits motion in one direction only. The ratchet is usually a wheel with slanting teeth. The pawl is a lever tangential to the wheel with one end resting on the teeth.
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It gave me the impression of a disordered mechanism which had escaped the repressive and regulating action of some controlling part--an effect such as might be expected if a pawl should be jostled from the teeth of a ratchet-wheel.
" The rush of expectant men out of the forecastle, the snatching of hand-spikes, the tramp of feet, the clink of the pawls, make a stirring accompaniment to a plaintive up-anchor song with a roaring chorus; and this burst of noisy activity from a whole ship's crew seems like a voiceful awakening of the ship herself, till then, in the picturesque phrase of Dutch seamen, "lying asleep upon her iron.
 
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