torsion balance

American  

noun

1. an instrument for measuring small forces, as electric attraction or repulsion, by determining the amount of torsion or twisting they cause in a slender wire or filament.

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torsion balance British  

noun

1. an instrument used to measure small forces, esp electric or magnetic forces, by the torsion they produce in a thin wire, thread, or rod

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Etymology

Origin of torsion balance

First recorded in 1820–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

torsion balance

As the outer masses attracted the inner ones, the torsion balance rotated and twisted the ribbon.

From Science Daily ● May 18, 2026

To do so, he used a piece of apparatus called a torsion balance.

From Economist ● Jan. 26, 2017

But the torsion balance did not work well in hilly land.

From Time Magazine Archive

He took two equal weights of a salt of radium and a salt of barium, which he made oscillate one after the other in a torsion balance.

From The New Physics and Its Evolution by Poincaré, Lucien

In 1785 Coulomb constructed his torsion balance, by which he was enabled to measure the repulsion of electrified bodies.

From Popular scientific lectures by Mach, Ernst