nouna pivoted curved bar or lever whose free end engages with the teeth of a cogwheel or ratchet so that the wheel or ratchet can only turn or move one way.• each of a set of short stout bars that engagewith the whelps and prevent a capstan, windlass, or winch from recoiling.ORIGIN early 17th cent.: perhaps from Low German and Dutch pal (related to pal ‘fixed’).
One of those things you never knew what they were—like the metal bit at the end of shoestrings. The things for which the words thingamajig and whatchamacallit were invented.
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