bearing
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbɛə̯ɹɪŋ/
enpr: bâr'ĭng
ipa: /ˈbɛɹɪŋ/
rhymes: -ɛəɹɪŋ
Forms: form: bearings
Etymology: From Middle English bering, beringe, berynge, equivalent to bear + -ing.
Senses: topics: engineering
mechanical
mechanical-engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
hypernyms: component#Noun
part#Noun
glosses: A mechanical device that supports another part or reduces friction.
examples: text: This volume would have been at least twice as large, if I had not made bold to strike out innumerable passages relating to the winds and tides, as well as to the variations and bearings in the several voyages, together with the minute descriptions of the management of the ship in storms, in the style of sailors; likewise the account of longitudes and latitudes; [...]
ref: 1726 October 28, Richard Sympson [pseudonym], [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, (please specify |part=I to IV), page X:
topics: nautical
transport
qualifier: navigation
glosses: The horizontal angle between the direction of an object and another object, or between it and that of true north; a heading or direction.
examples: text: Do we go left here or straight on? Hold on, let me just get my bearings.
text: I started a new job last week, and I still haven't quite found my bearings.
glosses: One's understanding of one's orientation or relative position, literally or figuratively.
raw_tags: in phrases such as 'get one's bearings'
examples: text: That has no bearing on this issue.
text: But of this frame, the bearings and the ties, / The strong connections, nice dependencies.
ref: 1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC:
glosses: Relevance; a relationship or connection.
examples: text: She walks with a confident, self-assured bearing.
text: I know him by his bearing.
ref: 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
text: The little green men were clearly professional soldiers by their bearing, carried Russian weapons, and wore Russian combat fatigues, but they had no identifying insignia. Vladimir Putin originally denied they were Russian soldiers; that April, he confirmed they were.
ref: 2019 March 18, Steven Pifer, Five years after Crimea’s illegal annexation, the issue is no closer to resolution, The Center for International Security and Cooperation:
glosses: One's posture, demeanor, or manner.
examples: text: A lintel or beam may have four inches of bearing upon the wall.
topics: architecture
glosses: That part of any member of a building which rests upon its supports.
topics: architecture
glosses: The portion of a support on which anything rests.
examples: text: The beam has twenty feet of bearing between its supports.
topics: architecture
glosses: The unsupported span.
examples: text: Holonyms: shield, escutcheon
text: […]when the French seized Malta they were by no means so delicate. They effaced armorial bearings with their usual hot-headed eagerness; and a few years after they had torn down the coats of arms of the gentry, the heroes of Malta and Egypt were busy devising heraldry for themselves, and were wild to be barons and counts of the empire.
ref: 1846, Mr. M. A. Titmarsh [pseudonym; W. M. Thackeray], chapter VIII, in Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo […] , London: Chapman and Hall, page 140:
topics: government
heraldry
hobbies
lifestyle
monarchy
nobility
politics
related: word: field
glosses: Any single emblem or charge in an escutcheon or coat of arms.
Derived terms: air bearing
armorial bearing
back bearing
bearingless
bearinglike
bearing rein
cutlass bearing
find one's bearings
get one's bearings
jewel bearing
journal bearing
lose one's bearings
muffler bearing
neck bearing
needle bearing
plain bearing
radial bearing
sidebearing
talebearing
Related terms: ABEC