noun. An apparatus used for hoisting weights, consisting of a vertical spool-shaped cylinder that is rotated manually or by machine and around which a cable is wound.

noun. A small cylindrical shaft used to drive magnetic tape at a constant speed in a tape recorder.

noun. An apparatus working on the principle of the wheel and axle, used for raising weights or applying power.

noun. A vertical cleated drum or cylinder, revolving on an upright spindle, and surmounted by a drumhead with sockets for bars or levers. It is much used, especially on shipboard, for moving or raising heavy weights or exerting great power by traction upon a rope or cable, passing around the drum. It is operated either by steam power or by a number of men walking around the capstan, each pushing on the end of a lever fixed in its socket.

noun. one of the long bars or levers by which the capstan is worked; a handspike..

noun. to drop the pawls so that they will catch in the notches of the pawl ring, and prevent the capstan from turning back.

noun. to prepare the for use, by putting the bars in the sockets.

noun. to slack the tension of the rope or cable wound around it.

noun. A vertical cleated drum or cylinder, revolving on an upright spindle, and surmounted by a drumhead with sockets for bars or levers. It is much used, especially on shipboard, for moving or raising heavy weights or exerting great power by traction upon a rope or cable, passing around the drum. It is operated either by steam power or by a number of men walking around the capstan, each pushing on the end of a lever fixed in its socket.

noun. A rotating spindle used to move recording tape through the mechanism of a tape recorder.

noun. a windlass rotated in a horizontal plane around a vertical axis; used on ships for weighing anchor or raising heavy sails

"Aside from a large winch, called a capstan, and various blocks and pulleys to take off some of the strain, eighteenth-century sailing ships relied on brute man power."