pulley
part of speech
noun (a pulley, pulleys)
meaning for a pupil
A pulley is a simple machine made of a wheel with a groove that a rope or chain runs over, used to lift heavy things more easily. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons a pulley is one of the simple machines: pulling down on the rope lifts a load up; using more pulleys means you need less effort but must pull more rope. Flagpoles, cranes and wells use pulleys. Phrases: «a pulley system», «block and tackle», «simple machines».
examples
- We used a pulley to lift the bucket. tree →
- The flag goes up the pole with a pulley. tree →
- A crane uses pulleys to lift heavy loads. tree →
- With two pulleys, you need less effort. tree →
- The old well had a pulley and rope. tree →
- We built a pulley in our science lesson. tree →
- The curtains open with a small pulley. tree →
- Off went Tom and four men besides, and when they came to the tree they began to draw it into the cart with pulleys. tree →
note
Countable; plural pulleys (not pullies). Simple machines: lever, pulley, wheel and axle, inclined plane, wedge, screw. Maths of pulleys: with more ropes holding the load, the effort is smaller but the distance you pull is longer.
In the corpora
- With several pulleys, more lengths of rope share the load, so you pull with less force but must pull much more rope.
- The lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley and the ramp are simple machines.
- A pulley is a wheel with a rope over it.
- A single fixed pulley changes the direction of the pull but not its size.
- Several pulleys together let you lift a heavy load with a smaller force but a longer pull of rope.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «pulley» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.