push-and-pulln.adj.

1881 Proc. Royal Soc. 33 23 This explanation would require that the magnetising force must have been, in all cases, below the Villari critical value at which the effects of push and pull on magnetisation are reversed.

1887 New Englander (New Haven, Connecticut) June 531 The mutual push and pull of skin, joints, tendons, etc. [in sensations of contact].

1906 G. B. Foster Finality Christian Relig. i. vi. 216 Suppose it were true..that all riddles and mysteries of nature are to be referred to the ‘push and pull’ of matter in motion and its simplest laws.

1943 J. Jeans Physics & Philos. i. 21 If human conduct was only a matter of the push and pull of atoms, all this became meaningless; it was in vain that he had..renounced all normal human pleasures.

1958 Spectator 4 July 19/3 The dramatic centre of the book is..the push-and-pull between Yule and his devoted but mutinous daughter.

1984 Times 13 Apr. 19/1 The cool and carefully worded prose fails to disguise the push and pull of intensely conflicting pressures which have been taking place behind the scenes.

1920 Official Hist. 315th Infantry U.S.A. 28 The greater part of the time was devoted to..the ‘push and pull’ exercise.

1921 F. T. Floyd Company F Overseas 37 These rides remind a soldier of that bit of army exercise popularly known as ‘push and pull’.

1929 Papers Michigan Acad. Sci., Arts & Lett. 10 317 Push and pull,..sighting and aiming drill.

1886 Times 31 July 14/4 (advt.) Chubb's New Lock—Push and Pull.

1888 Times 8 Aug. 3/1 The appellants' and the respondents' door-latches are all made on what is known as the ‘push and pull’ principle—that is to say, the latch is withdrawn from the doorpost, not by turning the door-handle round, but by pulling the inside handle or pushing the outside one.

1914 H. Carrington Probl. Psychical Res. xii. 371 A straight push-and-pull action is easier to accomplish than the more detailed and complicated action of forming words and letters.

1949 A. Koestler Insight & Outlook xiii. 192 The mechanistic push-and-pull physics of the last century.

1951 Daily Courier (Connell, Pa.) 20 Apr. 1/4 Sen. Homer E. Capehart..disclosed today that he engaged in a push-and-pull tussle with two Democratic senators this morning after one of them called him a ‘very dirty name’.

1960 Times 3 Oct. (Advt. Suppl.) p. ii/2 The Skid-Stac attachment..consists of a load carrying plate and push-and-pull rack.

2002 Y.-M. Lin Between Politics & Markets vii. 203 The imbalances created by favor seeking among firms bring about a push-and-pull effect on other economic actors.

1927 Times 25 Aug. 10/1 A push-and-pull train had been sent down, and on this the bodies were taken to Tub's Hill Station.

1939 K. G. Fenelon Brit. Railways To-day iii. 61 The most hopeful solution would appear to be the adoption of the push-and-pull type of train, which can be driven from either end, and which can take extra vehicles if required.

1965 K. Hoole in Regional Hist. Railways Great Brit. IV. xii. 219 Push-and-pull units, first used between Hartlepool and West Hartlepool in 1905, became a familiar sight throughout the system.

1975 G. Bye in G. W. Knight Jackson Knight v. i. 367 A much planned..trip on the ‘Tivvy Flyer’, the push and pull train on the Tiverton and Bampton branch-line, was, alas, never made.

1990 D. Davie Coll. Poems (new ed.) 447 The push-and-pull diesel clatters into a tunnel under a wooded escarpment.