CENTRIFUGAL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Centrifugal

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/sˈɛntrɪfjˌugəl/ Listen

adjective

Centrifugal adj.

1.

Tending, or causing, to recede from the center.

2.

(Bot.)

(a)

Expanding first at the summit, and later at the base, as a flower cluster.

(b)

Having the radicle turned toward the sides of the fruit, as some embryos.

Centrifugal force (Mech.), a force whose direction is from a center. Note: When a body moves in a circle with uniform velocity, a force must act on the body to keep it in the circle without change of velocity. The direction of this force is towards the center of the circle. If this force is applied by means of a string to the body, the string will be in a state of tension. To a person holding the other end of the string, this tension will appear to be directed toward the body as if the body had a tendency to move away from the center of the circle which it is describing. Hence this latter force is often called centrifugal force. The force which really acts on the body being directed towards the center of the circle is called centripetal force, and in some popular treatises the centripetal and centrifugal forces are described as opposing and balancing each other. But they are merely the different aspects of the same stress.

Centrifugal impression (Physiol.), an impression (motor) sent from a nerve center outwards to a muscle or muscles by which motion is produced.

Centrifugal machine, A machine for expelling water or other fluids from moist substances, or for separating liquids of different densities by centrifugal action; a whirling table.

Centrifugal pump, a machine in which water or other fluid is lifted and discharged through a pipe by the energy imparted by a wheel or blades revolving in a fixed case. Some of the largest and most powerful pumps are of this kind.

noun

Centrifugal n. A centrifugal machine.

See images of 'Centrifugal'

Etymology of 'Centrifugal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Centrifugal" Quotes from Famous Books

... says, has a station, as in a watch-tower; it is always seated here and now, in the self of the moment. The past and the future, things inferred and things conceived, lie around it, painted as upon a panorama. They cannot be lighted up save by some centrifugal ray of attention and present interest, by some ...

— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... to speak of grappling with the fear of insanity, and conquering it by being perfectly willing to be insane, but it is no more curious than the relation of the centrifugal and the centripetal forces to each other. We need our utmost power of concentration to enable us to yield truly, and to be fully willing to submit to whatever the law of our being may require. Fear contracts the brain and the nerves, and interrupts the circulation, and want of free circulation ...

— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call

... never before come to Lily. She had had a premonition of it in the blind motions of her mating-instinct; but they had been checked by the disintegrating influences of the life about her. All the men and women she knew were like atoms whirling away from each other in some wild centrifugal dance: her first glimpse of the continuity of life had come to her that evening in Nettie ...

— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... in a tight circle around the bottom of the 'drome. Increasing speed, he swung outward to the ramped juncture between floor and smooth, circular walls. Then, moving still faster, he was riding around the vertical walls, themselves, held there by centrifugal force. He climbed his vehicle to the very rim of the great cask, body out sideways, grinning and balancing, hands free, the squirrel tails flapping from ...

— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... him to slacken speed a little, but only a little, at the corner, and keep the horses from running to either side as he turned. This done Kanchin clung to the left side of the sledge prepared to step upon its fender and counteract, if possible, our centrifugal force. ...

— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

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