rack and pinion

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noun Machinery, Automotive.

See under rack¹ (def. 5a).

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Words nearby rack and pinion

racing form, racing skate, racism, racist, rack, rack and pinion, rack and ruin, go to, rackboard, rack car, racket, racketeer

Other definitions for rack and pinion (2 of 2)

rack-and-pinion

[ rak-uhn-pin-yuhn ]

/ ˈræk ənˈpɪn yən /

adjective

of or relating to a mechanism in which a rack engages a pinion: rack-and-pinion steering.

Origin of rack-and-pinion

First recorded in 1900–05

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use rack and pinion in a sentence

As an example of good science-and-society policymaking, the history of fluoride may be more of a cautionary tale.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
As this list shows, punishments typically run to a short-ish jail sentence and/or a moderately hefty fine.
In Defense of Blasphemy|Michael Tomasky|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Yes, Byrd—dead four-and-a-half years now—was a Kleagle in the Ku Klux Klan.
Steve Scalise and the Right’s Ridiculous Racial Blame Game|Michael Tomasky|January 2, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Bake on the center rack of the oven for 40 to 50 minutes or until set.
Make ‘The Chew’s’ Carla Hall’s Pumpkin Pecan Pie|Carla Hall|December 26, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Later that night, that same black-and-red banner would be seen again—in the column of marchers chanting for dead cops.
The Monsters Who Screamed for Dead Cops|Jacob Siegel|December 23, 2014|DAILY BEAST
She also practises etching, pen-and-ink drawing, as well as crayon and water-color sketching.
Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D.|Clara Erskine Clement
No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet, which consists only in two-and-twenty.
Gulliver's Travels|Jonathan Swift
Mr. Spurrell came down to see a horse, and we shall be very glad to have the benefit of his opinion by-and-by.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 107, November 3, 1894|Various
They were eaten too quickly, in long gulps of four-and-twenty hours at a time.
Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II|Rudyard Kipling
The whole thing begins to have a jigsaw look, like a child's toy rack with wooden soldiers on it, expanding and contracting.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice|Stephen Leacock

British Dictionary definitions for rack and pinion

rack-and-pinion

noun

a device for converting rotary into linear motion and vice versa, in which a gearwheel (the pinion) engages with a flat toothed bar (the rack)

adjective

(of a type of steering gear in motor vehicles) having a track rod with a rack along part of its length that engages with a pinion attached to the steering column

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012