Wednesday Word: Pawl
pawl |pôl| 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.