rod
/ɹɑd/ noun B2- A straight, round stick, shaft, bar, cane, or staff. · The circus strong man proved his strength by bending an iron rod, and then straightening it.
- A longitudinal pole used for forming part of a framework such as an awning or tent.
- A long slender usually tapering pole used for angling; fishing rod. · When I hooked a snake and not a fish, I got so scared I dropped my rod in the water.
- A stick, pole, or bundle of switches or twigs (such as a birch), used for personal defense or to administer corporal punishment by whipping.
- An implement resembling and/or supplanting a rod (particularly a cane) that is used for corporal punishment, and metonymically called the rod, regardless of its actual shape and composition. · The judge imposed on the thief a sentence of fifteen strokes with the rod.
- A stick used to measure distance, by using its established length or task-specific temporary marks along its length, or by dint of specific graduated marks. · I notched a rod and used it to measure the length of rope to cut.
- An implement held vertically and viewed through an optical surveying instrument such as a transit, used to measure distance in land surveying and construction layout; an engineer's rod, surveyor's rod, surveying rod, leveling rod, ranging rod. The modern (US) engineer's or surveyor's rod commonly is eight or ten feet long and often designed to extend higher. In former times a surveyor's rod often was a single wooden pole or composed of multiple sectioned and socketed pieces, and besides serving as a sighting target was used to measure distance on the ground horizontally, hence for convenience was of one rod or pole in length, that is, 5+¹⁄₂ yards.
- A straight bar that unites moving parts of a machine, for holding parts together as a connecting rod or for transferring power as a driveshaft. · The engine threw a rod, and then went to pieces before our eyes, springs and coils shooting in all directions.
Plural rods
From the library
In the first place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his people.
Then I took two lengths of a fishing-rod, which came to just six feet, and I went back with my client to where the elm had been.
I fastened the rod on end, marked out the direction of the shadow, and measured it.
If a rod of six feet threw a shadow of nine, a tree of sixty-four feet would throw one of ninety-six, and the line of the one would of course be the line of the other.
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