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# pendulum

«pendulum» in Mova's school dictionary: **a weight hanging from a fixed point on a string or rod…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a pendulum, pendulums)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A pendulum is a weight hanging from a fixed point on a string or rod, which swings backwards and forwards. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#m1)

2) The swinging part of some old clocks, like a grandfather clock, which keeps the clock on time. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#m2)

3) The idea of something changing from one extreme to the other and back again, like the «pendulum of opinion». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In science lessons pupils make a pendulum with string and a weight, time its swings with a stopwatch and find that the length of the string changes how long one swing takes, while the weight hardly does; it is a classic fair test. In stories a ticking pendulum clock adds a spooky or calm feeling. Phrases: swing like a pendulum, the pendulum swings, pendulum clock, the pendulum of a clock.

### examples

- The pendulum of the grandfather clock swung slowly. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x1)
- We timed ten swings of the pendulum and divided by ten. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x2)
- A longer pendulum swings more slowly. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x3)
- Changing the weight did not change the pendulum's time much. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x4)
- Galileo noticed a lamp swinging like a pendulum in a church. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x5)
- The hypnotist swung a watch like a pendulum. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x6)
- The pendulum of fashion has swung back to wide trousers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x7)
- A playground swing is a kind of pendulum. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x8)
- The pendulum of the great clock went to and fro, and the hands turned, and everything in the room became still older; but they did not observe it. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/#x9)

### note

Countable: one pendulum, two pendulums (the Latin plural «pendula» is very rare). Pronounced «PEN-dyoo-lum» or «PEN-juh-lum». In science investigations: to measure the time of one swing more accurately, time ten swings and divide by 10. Trap: many children guess a heavier weight swings faster, but the length of the string matters, not the weight.

### In the corpora

- [A swing is a pendulum: a weight hanging from a point, going back and forth with its own steady rhythm.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/10-swings-and-pendulums/0/)
- [A short pendulum swings quickly and a long one slowly; one four times as long takes twice as long to swing.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/10-swings-and-pendulums/8/)
- [Galileo noticed that a pendulum takes the same time to swing whether the swing is big or small.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/123-pendulums-greenwich-atomic-clocks/11/)
- [In 1656 Christiaan Huygens built a pendulum clock, far more accurate than any clock before.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/123-pendulums-greenwich-atomic-clocks/12/)
- [A pendulum about 1 metre long takes about 1 second to swing one way.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/123-pendulums-greenwich-atomic-clocks/13/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «pendulum» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pendulum/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.