Word.ws English Dictionary

detents

detents is the plural of detent.

Meaning of detent

Noun

detent (plural detents)

  1. That which locks or unlocks a movement; a catch (stopping mechanism), pawl, or dog; especially, in clockwork, the catch which locks and unlocks the wheelwork in striking.
    • A UHF tuner having 70 detent positions with fine tuning capability at all locations. Coarse tuning is accomplished via a toothed, detented disk and a spirally-extending rim having a follower lever operable therewith.1972, Mayer et al., United States Patent 3760640, abstract

See all 2 meanings of detent

Questions about detents

What is detents the plural of?
Detents is the plural of detent.

Words near detents in the dictionary

  1. detention times
  2. detention warrant
  3. detention warrants
  4. detentions
  5. detentive
  6. detents
  7. deter
  8. Deterding
  9. Deterdings
  10. deterge
  11. deterged

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: detents (page history and authors); detent (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “detents.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/detents. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.