rod
/rɒd
/- These elegantly diminutive, finely wrought sculptures employ curved, flat and linear shapes that perch upon thin metal rods.
- Approximately half of the tubes are filled with thin steel rods, which radiate outward to varying lengths.
- In the living room, a chainmail curtain hung from a metal rod is a fireguard for the aluminium clad fireplace.
Synonyms
- She's all about the discipline of the rod and the power of a dollar.
- Chiron raises two fingers in the standard antique gesture of a teacher while holding a rod in his other hand.
- There were also numerous pictures of Cadere, youthful and earnest, a modern shaman with rod in hand.
Synonyms
- I say relatively, because all too frequently you've broken the very rules you vow to uphold, particularly through your selective choice and editing of sequences of material which you then employ as a rod with which to beat us, and others.
Synonyms
- He is shown with a huge carp and a rod for fishing.
- Sorry, but you have to leave the fly fishing rods at home.
- Over the past fifty years I have used dozens of fly fishing rods.
- Be warned, if you sit too close to the screen, the TV may do permanent damage to your rods and cones.
Phrases
kiss the rod
make a rod for one's own back
rule with a rod of iron
spare the rod and spoil the child
Derivatives
rodless
- The plate is suspended from an oversized rodless cylinder capable of ejecting an off-spec bag and returning to the ‘home’ position.
- Its suit claimed that products from the pneumatics manufacturer infringed on two of his patents for magnetically coupled rodless pistons.
rodlet
- This membrane has an ultrastructure consisting of a mosaic of 10-nm-wide parallel rodlets.
- Patches of adsorbed rodlets were observed on the substrate during AFM visualization of B. thuringiensis spores.
- In studies of class I hydrophobin rodlets it has been estimated that the rodlet diameters range from 2 to 15 nm, which is also within the range of some other amyloid proteins.
rod-like
- The former can be considered as a two-dimensional superlattice structure, which contains between 10 and 30 rod-like aggregates.
- Mercerized cotton is treated to permanently straighten the cotton fibers which then becomes a smooth, rod-like fiber that is uniform in appearance with a high luster.
- A rod-like device, sometimes made of expandable metal mesh, is used to prop open a narrowed artery, typically as part of an angioplasty procedure.
Origin
Late Old English rodd 'slender shoot growing on or cut from a tree', also 'straight stick or bundle of twigs used to inflict punishment'; probably related to Old Norse rudda 'club'.
In Old English rod meant ‘slender shoot growing on or cut from a tree’ but also ‘straight stick or bundle of twigs used to inflict punishment’, and phrases linked with it tend to evoke traditional, and severe, ideas of discipline. If you exert control over someone strictly or harshly you may be said to rule them with a rod of iron. The expression goes back to the Bible, to Psalms: ‘Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.’ The proverb spare the rod and spoil the child, meaning that if children are not physically punished when they do wrong their personal development will suffer, is found from Anglo-Saxon times. It too has a biblical origin, from Proverbs: ‘He that spareth his rod, hateth his son.’ See also kiss