Toggle

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. A wooden pin tapering toward both ends with a groove around its middle, fixed transversely in the eye of a rope to be secured to any other loop or bight or ring; a kind of button or frog capable of being readily engaged and disengaged for temporary purposes.

2. Two rods or plates connected by a toggle joint. Toggle iron, a harpoon with a pivoted crosspiece in a mortise near the point to prevent it from being drawn out when a whale, shark, or other animal, is harpooned. -- Toggle joint, an elbow or knee joint, consisting of two bars so connected that they may be brought quite or nearly into a straight line, and made to produce great endwise pressure, when any force is applied to bring them into this position.