caliper
Americannoun
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calipers
plural
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Usually calipers. an instrument for measuring thicknesses and internal or external diameters inaccessible to a scale, consisting usually of a pair of adjustable pivoted legs.
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any of various calibrated instruments for measuring thicknesses or distances between surfaces, usually having a screwed or sliding adjustable piece.
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thickness or depth, as of paper or a tree.
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Usually calipers. the pincers of an earwig.
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Automotive. the part of a disc-brake assembly that straddles the disc and presses the brake pads against it.
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a similar part used with a hand brake on a bicycle.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of caliper
First recorded in 1580–90; presumably variant of caliber
Vocabulary lists containing caliper
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Red Bull said his retirement was caused by a caliper causing the brake to bind on to the disc.
From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2024
To do the work, the team used a large lathe to spin a detached brake rotor and caliper.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 12, 2024
Using a delicate magnetic caliper employed by violin makers to measure in millimeters an instrument’s walls and veneers, the conservators tracked the wood’s thickness at short intervals along the crack.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 18, 2024
Two-year-old red oaks are already 24 inches high, and he said they will attain a 1-inch caliper trunk after four years, a size when they can be safely planted.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 18, 2021
Using a caliper and other special tools, Agent Burger, with the help of the Dallas police, took eleven of Morrison’s body measurements.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
Pulling alongside the Portland Head Light, a lighthouse dating to 1791, Martin yanked up a trap that held three shiny lobsters, and then demonstrated how to measure their shells with calipers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
In the Netflix film, Swan demonstrates with calipers on a life-size, anatomically correct male baby doll in a coffee shop to the nervous titters of the participants.
From Slate ● Apr. 16, 2026
On a recent weekday, a dozen biologists armed with nets, calipers and notebooks gathered before daybreak at the Angeles National Forest site to take a full accounting of one of California’s great wildlife spectacles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2023
They measured the chicks’ wing and bill length with a ruler and calipers.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 14, 2022
These include the earliest dated set of European navigation instruments found thus far: compasses, protractors, calipers, sounding leads, tide calculators, and a device for calculating speed called a log reel.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
