Gear
(Gear) n. [OE. gere, ger, AS. gearwe clothing, adornment, armor, fr. gearo, gearu, ready,
yare; akin to OHG. garawi, garwi ornament, dress. See Yare, and cf. Garb dress.]
1. Clothing; garments; ornaments.
Array thyself in thy most gorgeous gear.
Spenser. 2. Goods; property; household stuff. Chaucer.
Homely gear and common ware.
Robynson 3. Whatever is prepared for use or wear; manufactured stuff or material.
Clad in a vesture of unknown gear.
Spenser. 4. The harness of horses or cattle; trapping.
5. Warlike accouterments. [Scot.] Jamieson.
6. Manner; custom; behavior. [Obs.] Chaucer.
7. Business matters; affairs; concern. [Obs.]
Thus go they both together to their gear.
Spenser. 8. (Mech.) (a) A toothed wheel, or cogwheel; as, a spur gear, or a bevel gear; also, toothed wheels,
collectively. (b) An apparatus for performing a special function; gearing; as, the feed gear of a lathe.
(c) Engagement of parts with each other; as, in gear; out of gear.
9. pl. (Naut.) See 1st Jeer (b).
10. Anything worthless; stuff; nonsense; rubbish. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] Wright.
That servant of his that confessed and uttered this gear was an honest man.
Latimer. Bever gear.
See Bevel gear. — Core gear, a mortise gear, or its skeleton. See Mortise wheel,
under Mortise. — Expansion gear (Steam Engine), the arrangement of parts for cutting off steam
at a certain part of the stroke, so as to leave it to act upon the piston expansively; the cut-off. See under
Expansion. — Feed gear. See Feed motion, under Feed, n. — Gear cutter, a machine or tool for
forming the teeth of gear wheels by cutting. — Gear wheel, any cogwheel. — Running gear. See
under Running. — To throw in, or out of, gear (Mach.), to connect or disconnect (wheelwork or
couplings, etc.); to put in, or out of, working relation.
Gear
(Gear) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Geared ; p. pr. & vb. n. Gearing.]
1. To dress; to put gear on; to harness.
2. (Mach.) To provide with gearing.
Double geared,
driven through twofold compound gearing, to increase the force or speed; — said of a
machine.
Gear
(Gear), v. i. (Mach.) To be in, or come into, gear.
Gearing
(Gear"ing), n.
1. Harness.