fulcrum

Etymology

From Latin fulcrum (“bedpost, foot of a couch”), from fulciō (“prop up, support”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfʌlk.ɹəm/
• (UK) also IPA^(key): /ˈfʊlk.ɹəm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

fulcrum (plural fulcrums or fulcra)

1. (mechanics) The support about which a lever pivots.
   • It is possible to flick food across the table using your fork as a lever and your finger as a fulcrum.
   • 2010, John Allison, Bad Machinery

     MILDRED: Archimedes said give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I will move the world.

     CHARLOTTE: Yeah she said that twaddle eight or nine times.

   • 2012 March 1, Henry Petroski, “Opening Doors”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 2, page 112-3:

     A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place.

2. (figuratively) A crux or pivot; a central point.
   • 2006, Rebecca Langlands, Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome (page 119)

     By this point the fulcrum of concern is the stuprum of men upon men, described as more prevalent than that upon women.

Etymology

From fulciō.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈful.krum/, [ˈfʊɫ.krũ]

Noun

fulcrum n (genitive fulcrī); second declension

1. bedpost
2. foot (of a couch)
3. couch

References

• fulcrum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• fulcrum in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• fulcrum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• fulcrum in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin