Es*cape"ment (?), n. [Cf. F.
échappement. See Escape.] 1.
The act of escaping; escape. [R.]
2. Way of escape; vent. [R.]
An escapement for youthful high
spirits.
G. Eliot.
3. The contrivance in a timepiece which
connects the train of wheel work with the pendulum or balance, giving
to the latter the impulse by which it is kept in vibration; -- so
called because it allows a tooth to escape from a pallet at
each vibration.
&fist; Escapements are of several kinds, as the
vertical, or verge, or crown, escapement,
formerly used in watches, in which two pallets on the balance arbor
engage with a crown wheel; the anchor escapement, in which an
anchor-shaped piece carries the pallets; -- used in common clocks
(both are called recoil escapements, from the recoil of the
escape wheel at each vibration); the cylinder escapement,
having an open-sided hollow cylinder on the balance arbor to control
the escape wheel; the duplex escapement, having two sets of
teeth on the wheel; the lever escapement, which is a kind of
detached escapement, because the pallets are on a lever so
arranged that the balance which vibrates it is detached during the
greater part of its vibration and thus swings more freely; the
detent escapement, used in chronometers; the remontoir
escapement, in which the escape wheel is driven by an independent
spring or weight wound up at intervals by the clock train, --
sometimes used in astronomical clocks. When the shape of an escape-
wheel tooth is such that it falls dead on the pallet without recoil,
it forms a deadbeat escapement.
