Pivot

Quick meaning: Pivot is a noun meaning A thing on which something turns; specifically a metal pointed pin or short shaft in machinery, such as the end of an axle or spindle.

Meaning

A thing on which something turns; specifically a metal pointed pin or short shaft in machinery, such as the end of an axle or spindle.

More Meanings

1. (figuratively, by extension) Something or someone having a paramount significance in a certain situation.
2. Act of turning on one foot.
3. (military) The officer or soldier who simply turns in his place while the company or line moves around him in wheeling.
4. (roller derby) A player with responsibility for co-ordinating their team in a particular jam.
5. (computing) A pivot table.
6. (graphical user interface) Any of a row of captioned elements used to navigate to subpages, rather like tabs.
7. (programming) An element of a set to be sorted that is chosen as a midpoint, so as to divide the other elements into two groups to be dealt with recursively.

Example Sentences

The weight of the body and the traction and braking forces are taken by the conventional dished bogie centre pivot with phosphor-bronze liner; this type of centre pivot facilitates passage over marshalling yard humps.

Sandy Weill was the man who stitched Citigroup together in the 1990s and in the process helped bury the Glass-Steagall act, a Depression-era law separating retail and investment banking. Last month he performed a perfect pivot: he now wants regulators to undo his previous work.

“The story of this adoption is, of course, the pivot round which all the circumstances of the mysterious tragedy revolved. Mrs. Yule had an only son, namely, William, to whom she was passionately attached ; but, like many a fond mother, she had the desire of mapping out that son's future entirely according to her own ideas.[…]”

Word Forms

• pivots
• pivoting
• pivoted

Synonyms for pivot

Depending on context, synonyms include swivel, pin.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include swivel, pin, linchpin, hub, fulcrum, pole.

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