From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Escapement \Es*cape"ment\, n. [Cf. F. ['e]chappement. See
{Escape}.]
1. The act of escaping; escape. [R.]
[1913 Webster]
2. Way of escape; vent. [R.]
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An escapement for youthful high spirits. --G. Eliot.
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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.
[1913 Webster]
Note: 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.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
escapement
n 1: mechanical device that regulates movement
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