Word Meanings - PIVOTAL - Book Publishers vocabulary database

Of or pertaining to a pivot or turning point; belonging to, or constituting, a pivot; of the nature of a pivot; as, the pivotalopportunity of a career; the pivotal position in a battle.

Related words: (words related to PIVOTAL)

• BATTLE
  Fertile. See Battel, a.
• TURNINGNESS
  The quality of turning; instability; tergiversation. Sir P. Sidney.
• TURNSTONE
  Any species of limicoline birds of the genera Strepsilas and Arenaria, allied to the plovers, especially the common American and European species . They are so called from their habit of turning up small stones in search of mollusks and
• TURNING
  The pieces, or chips, detached in the process of turning from the material turned. (more info) 1. The act of one who, or that which, turns; also, a winding; a bending course; a fiexure; a meander. Through paths and turnings often trod
• CONSTITUTIONALIST
  One who advocates a constitutional form of government; a constitutionalist.
• TURN-SICK
  Giddy. Bacon.
• POINT SWITCH
  A switch made up of a rail from each track, both rails being tapered far back and connected to throw alongside the through rail of either track.
• TURNVEREIN
  A company or association of gymnasts and athletes.
• POINTLESSLY
  Without point.
• TURNHALLE
  A building used as a school of gymnastics.
• POINT-DEVICE; POINT-DEVISE
  Uncommonly nice and exact; precise; particular. You are rather point-devise in your accouterments. Shak. Thus he grew up, in logic point-devise, Perfect in grammar, and in rhetoric nice. Longfellow. (more info) + point point, condition + devis
• TURNSPIT
  A small breed of dogs having a long body and short crooked legs. These dogs were formerly much used for turning a spit on which meat was roasting. (more info) 1. One who turns a spit; hence, a person engaged in some menial office. His lordship
• CONSTITUTION
  1. The act or process of constituting; the action of enacting, establishing, or appointing; enactment; establishment; formation. 2. The state of being; that form of being, or structure and connection of parts, which constitutes and characterizes
• TURNSOLE
  + sole the sun, L. sol. See Turn, Solar, a., and cf. A plant of the genus Heliotropium; heliotrope; -- so named because its flowers are supposed to turn toward the sun. The sunflower. A kind of spurge . The euphorbiaceous plant Chrozophora
• TURN-BUCKLE
  A loop or sleeve with a screw thread at one end and a swivel at the other, -- used for tightening a rod, stay, etc. A gravitating catch, as for fastening a shutter, the end of a chain, or a hasp.
• POINTAL
  The pistil of a plant. 2. A kind of pencil or style used with the tablets of the Middle Ages. "A pair of tablets . . . and a pointel." Chaucer.
• POINTED
  1. Sharp; having a sharp point; as, a pointed rock. 2. Characterized by sharpness, directness, or pithiness of expression; terse; epigrammatic; especially, directed to a particular person or thing. His moral pleases, not his pointed wit. Pope.
• TURNCOAT
  One who forsakes his party or his principles; a renegade; an apostate. He is a turncoat, he was not true to his profession. Bunyan.
• TURNBULL'S BLUE
  The double cyanide of ferrous and ferric iron, a dark blue amorphous substance having a coppery luster, used in dyeing, calico printing, etc. Cf. Prussian blue, under Prussian.
• TURNERY
  1. The art of fashioning solid bodies into cylindrical or other forms by means of a lathe. 2. Things or forms made by a turner, or in the lathe. Chairs of wood, the seats triangular, the backs, arms, and legs loaded with turnery. Walpole.
• RE-TURN
  To turn again.
• NOCTURNAL
  1. Of, pertaining to, done or occuring in, the night; as, nocturnal darkness, cries, expedition, etc.; -- opposed to Ant: diurnal. Dryden. 2. Having a habit of seeking food or moving about at night; as, nocturnal birds and insects.
• COVER-POINT
  The fielder in the games of cricket and lacrosse who supports "point."
• SATURNISM
  Plumbum. Quain.
• DIUTURNAL
  Of long continuance; lasting. Milton.
• APPOSITION
  The state of two nouns or pronouns, put in the same case, without a connecting word between them; as, I admire Cicero, the orator. Here, the second noun explains or characterizes the first. Growth by apposition , a mode of growth characteristic
• UNNATURE
  To change the nature of; to invest with a different or contrary nature. A right heavenly nature, indeed, as if were unnaturing them, doth so bridle them . Sir P. Sidney.
• OVERTURN
  1. To turn or throw from a basis, foundation, or position; to overset; as, to overturn a carriage or a building. 2. To subvert; to destroy; to overthrow. 3. To overpower; to conquer. Milton. Syn. -- To demolish; overthrow. See Demolish.
• LECTURN
  A choir desk, or reading desk, in some churches, from which the lections, or Scripture lessons, are chanted or read; hence, a reading desk. . Fairholt.
• OPPOSITIONIST
  One who belongs to the opposition party. Praed.
• EMBATTLEMENT
  1. An intended parapet; a battlement. 2. The fortifying of a building or a wall by means of battlements.