pivotaladj.n.

1837 Shepherd 25 Nov. 171/1 Unitary or pivotal equilibrium. M. Fourier gives this name to passional agreement in the distribution of benefits.

1838 tr. V. Considerant in New Moral World 10 Nov. 37/1 The colonel is the pivotal individual of the regiment; the general is that of the army; man is the pivotal creature among the beings which people his globe.

1875 W. D. Whitney Life & Growth Lang. ii. 16 About this pivotal fact all the other matters involved fall into position as..auxiliary.

1927 H. Peake & H. J. Fleure Priests & Kings 134 A new feature, however, was the use of door-slabs of stone set with pivotal hinges.

1953 T. Dickinson in K. Reisz Technique Film Editing 7 The pivotal contribution of the film editor has never been analysed objectively. Film editing has only been dealt with in the personal theories of Eisenstein, Pudovkin and others.

1976 National Observer (U.S.) 13 Nov. 4/5 The pardon of Richard Nixon was pivotal, it seems, to those independents who made up their minds at the last minute and turned to Jimmy Carter.

1995 Imprimis Jan. 1/2 It was the pivotal point of the recent past.

1924 E. T. Whittaker & G. Robinson Calculus of Observ. v. 71 We prepare the determinant for our subsequent operations by multiplying some row or column by such a number p as will make one of the elements unity, and put 1/p as a factor outside the determinant. This unit element will henceforth be called the pivotal element.

1952 D. R. Hartree Numerical Anal. viii. 158 The coefficient a_jk..is called the ‘pivotal coefficient’ or ‘pivot’ for this elimination; it is the coefficient, in the pivotal equation, of the variable to be eliminated.

1991 A. Noble in C. Bondi New Applic. Math. x. 235 This is done by operating algebraically on each non-pivotal row..with a multiple of the pivotal row so that each non-pivotal element in the pivotal column is reduced to zero.

1963 M. D. S. Braine in Language 30 4 Do it, push it, close it, etc...appear to exemplify the same kind of pivotal construction as the previous combinations discussed, except that now the pivot is in the final position.

1970 L. M. Bloom Lang. Devel. 223 The two relational aspects of language appear to be related to the two descriptions of children's speech as ‘telegraphic’ and ‘pivotal’.

1971 Jrnl. Speech & Hearing Disorders 36 42 How does the child progress from using pivotal utterances to using utterances that reflect the complex interrelation of rules that is the essence of adult phrase structure?

1918 Daily Mail 29 Nov. 3/2 Men who are essential to the building up and expansion of trade..are officially described as ‘pivotals’.

1919 Times 22 Jan. 10/4 The introduction of a system of dilution by men with clerical qualifications in the classes to be retained in order that ‘pivotals’ for whom there is a dual claim may be released.

1939 A. C. Aitken Determinants & Matrices ii. 47 A determinant of order n being reduced by a first pivotal condensation to one of order n—1, the latter in its turn can be reduced by a second pivotal condensation to one of order n—2, and so on.

1982 Evolution 36 879/1 The uncorrelated linear combinations were obtained by the pivotal condensation of the dispersion matrix.

2001 Pivotal Condensation in sci.math (Usenet newsgroup) 6 July I am asked to find a certain cofactor of a large (> 3x3) matrix, using the method of pivotal condensation.

1918 Times 25 Jan. 4/1 In the big industries..pivotal men would be needed before a start could be made. Firms would be asked to supply the names of these pivotal men, so that they could be returned as quickly as possible.

1920 F. Watson Pandora's Young Men iii. 22 She found Blinkhorn in some out-of-the-way depot in France and managed to have him demobilised as a pivotal man.

1999 D. J. Childs Peripheral Weapon? i. iii. 72 The age group contained so many pivotal men without whom the munitions industry would have been particularly badly hit.

1919 W. S. Churchill in D. Cooper Haig (1936) II. xxvii. 406 Indiscipline and disorganisation would arise in the Army if pivotalism, i.e. favouritism, were to rule in regard to the discharge of men.

1919 Times 4 Mar. 14/2 Pivotalism..affected the morale and cohesion of every platoon in our forces... The Army is divided sharply into two classes, one of which knows it is going to go, and the other that it has got to stay.

1922 Encycl. Brit. XXX. 215/1 Pivotalism..was called ‘favouritism’.

1868 N.-Y. Tribune 26 June 6/2 The excited Passion becoming the center or pivot of the passional system,..displacing consciousness,..or pivotally, confirmed Misanthropy and Atheism.

1869 Sentinel of Freedom (Newark, New Jersey) 21 Dec. 2/8 Tripping buckets are fixed pivotally to a longitud[in]al girder erected over the tracks.

1885 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 31 Mar. 1289/1 The combination, with the frame A, of an upright frame pivotally secured thereto, a hollow shaft, I, secured to the latter, [etc.].

1887 Sci. Amer. 12 Feb. 98 The stanchion is pivotally held between the floor..and any stationary upper beam by two bolts.

1909 Westm. Gaz. 11 Nov. 5/2 The pistons..are connected to the axles by pivotally mounted piston-rods.

1991 Offshore Engineer Sept. 219/1 A mechanism..comprises a housing, with several stabiliser linkages mounted on it with one end of each being pivotally secured to the housing.