PAWL
pawl
Noun
- A pivoted catch designed to fall into a notch on a ratchet wheel so as to allow movement in only one direction (e.g. on a windlass or in a clock mechanism), or alternatively to move the wheel in one direction.
Verb
- To stop with a pawl.
The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: pawl
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.