(engineering,countable) One of thesimple machines; asheave, awheel with agroovedrim, in which a pulledrope orchain lifts an object (more useful when two or more pulleys are used together, as in ablock and tackle arrangement, such that a small force moving through a greater distance can exert a larger force through a smaller distance).
1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Gives Some Account of Himself and Family, His First Inducements to Travel.[…]”, inTravels into Several Remote Nations of the World.[…][Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London:[…]Benj[amin] Motte,[…],→OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput),page20:
Nine hundred of the ſtrongeſt Men were employed to draw up theſe Cords by manyPulleys faſtned on the Poles, and thus, in leſs than three Hours, I was raiſed and flung into the Engine, and there tyed faſt.
1951 August, P. W. Gentry, “Cliff Railways”, inRailway Magazine, page515:
The steel haulage ropes have a breaking strain of 50 tons, and another pair passing around apulley at the bottom connect the lower ends of the cars and act as tail or balance ropes.
[a mine]is digg'd out with ease, being soft, and is between a white Clay and Chalk at first; but beingpulley'd up with the open Air, it receives a crusty kind of hardness
