noun

• The regulating device in a watch or clock.

  ‘Instead of a verge and foliot escapements they used a device called a balance wheel, which swung back and forth regulating the motion of the gears.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘In general, any lantern clock with a balance wheel has had its escapement restored.’
  • ‘This oscillation is not exactly a parallel to the balance wheel and hairspring of a clockwork watch, but the fact is that both use oscillations to keep track of passing time.’
  • ‘Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance wheel of the social machinery.’
  • ‘Hooke used the natural oscillation of a spring to control the balance of a clock and some years later Huygens also experimented with a balance wheel and spring assembly which can still be found in mechanical wrist watches.’
  • ‘The timing mechanism is usually some form of tuned oscillator, such as a pendulum, a balance wheel (which rotates back and forth), or a quartz crystal (which vibrates).’
  • ‘Huygens also developed the balance wheel and spring assembly that is still found in some wristwatches today.’
  • ‘‘We are here,’ Futanri continued, her voice like the shriek of meteorites in atmosphere, ‘to examine the shifting of the balance wheel.’’
  • ‘Hill writes, ‘Enthusiasm is the vital quality that arouses you to action, while self-control is the balance wheel that directs your action so that it will build up and not tear down.’’
  • ‘It thus made a perfect balance wheel to ‘manly emotion,’ which consisted of powerful and urgent passions.’
  • ‘The alloys are used in a variety of products, such as ball bearings, springs, balance wheels in watches, surgical instruments, electrical contacts, and astronomical mirrors.’
  • ‘The American light-vehicle buyers, with their economic balance wheels cheerfully clicking away, have embraced the lower transaction prices, not by saving, but by buying bigger and fancier units.’
  • ‘Fashioned with loving care from pure gold, enhanced with jewels to make the fine springs and tiny balance wheels work better and longer, I began working in 1900 as a gentleman's pocket watch.’