(click/touch triangles for details)
Definition
the pivot about which a lever turnsMore rarely, a fulcrum is anything that supports something else that revolves around it.
- It is the fulcrum on which the plan pivots.
- Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.Archimedes
- shifted the fulcrum of U.S. politics
- 'Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!'Bram Stoker -- Dracula
- I understood the mechanics of levers; but where was I to get a fulcrum?Jack London -- Sea Wolf
- That's why it's a fulcrum word.Robert M. Pirsig -- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- Snap her arms and legs using his knees as a fulcrum as he had on occasion.Ted Dekker -- BoneMan's Daughters
- I'm at the fulcrum," he said.Frank Herbert -- Dune
- And he felt himself to be only the occasion, the fulcrum, needed to make this movement possible.Boris Pasternak -- Doctor Zhivago
- Without a sound, he began to pivot from the rock, with his foothold the fulcrum.Mark Helprin -- A Soldier of the Great War
- His forefinger felt where the handle of his sword would use it for a fulcrum.T. H. White -- The Once and Future King
- Timber splinters, as though the rubble teeters on some final fulcrum.Anthony Doerr -- All the Light We Cannot See
- "Who was it that said he needed a fulcrum?" said Ellis Wyatt.Ayn Rand -- Atlas Shrugged
- Ralph used one hand as a fulcrum and pressed down with the other till the shell rose, dripping, and Piggy could make a grab.William Golding -- Lord of the Flies
- Where was the fulcrum?Tim O'Brien -- Going After Cacciato
- His bitterness was a fulcrum and his rage was a long lever with which he would move the world, the whole damn world, to learn the truth, no matter what damage he caused or whom he destroyed in the process.Dean Koontz -- Sole Survivor
- But what I am saying is that it is these sorts of instances which over time come to symbolize an irrefutable fact; namely that one has had the privilege of practising one's profession at the very fulcrum of great affairs.Kazuo Ishiguro -- The Remains of the Day
- Jewel's hat droops limp about his neck, channelling water onto the soaked towsack tied about his shoulders as, ankle-deep in the running ditch, he pries with a slipping two-by-four, with a piece of rotting log for fulcrum, at the axle.William Faulkner -- As I Lay Dying
- Nurse Duckett shrieked and jumped into the air a mile, but it wasn't high enough, and she squirmed and vaulted and seesawed back and forth on her divine fulcrum for almost a full fifteen seconds before she wiggled free finally and retreated frantically into the aisle with an ashen, trembling face.Joseph Heller -- Catch-22
- Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force at its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied at its fulcrum, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free inflammable coal gas by turningon the ventcock, lit a high flame which, by regulating, he reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a...James Joyce -- Ulysses
Dictionary / pronunciation — Google®Dictionary list — Onelook.com®Wikipedia ArticlePictures — Google Images®