link

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Origin: Prob. corrupted from lint and this for lunt a torch, match, D. lont match; akin to G. lunte, cf. MHG. lünden to burn. Cf. Lunt, Linstock.

A torch made of tow and pitch, or the like. William Shakespeare

Origin: OE. linke, AS. hlence; akin to Sw. länk ring of a chain, Dan. lænke chain, Icel. hlekkr; cf. G. gelenk joint, link, ring of a chain, lenken to bend.

1. A single ring or division of a chain.

2. Hence: Anything, whether material or not, which binds together, or connects, separate things; a part of a connected series; a tie; a bond. “Links of iron.” William Shakespeare

The link of brotherhood, by which One common Maker bound me to the kind.— William Cowper

And so by double links enchained themselves in lover's life.— George Gascoigne

3. Anything doubled and closed like a link; as, a link of horsehair. John Mortimer

4. Kinematics Any one of the several elementary pieces of a mechanism, as the fixed frame, or a rod, wheel, mass of confined liquid, etc., by which relative motion of other parts is produced and constrained.

5. Machinery Any intermediate rod or piece for transmitting force or motion, especially a short connecting rod with a bearing at each end; specifically Steam Engine, the slotted bar, or connecting piece, to the opposite ends of which the eccentric rods are jointed, and by means of which the movement of the valve is varied, in a link motion.

6. Surveying The length of one joint of Gunter's chain, being the hundredth part of it, or 7.92 inches, the chain being 66 feet in length. Cf. Chain, noun, 4.

7. Chemistry A bond of affinity, or a unit of valence between atoms; — applied to a unit of chemical force or attraction.

8. pl. Sausages; — because linked together. colloquial

Origin: See Linch.

1. A hill or ridge, as a sand hill, or a wooded or turfy bank between cultivated fields, etc. Scottish & dialect (England)

2. A winding of a river; also, the ground along such a winding; a meander; — usually in pl. Scottish

The windings or “links” of the Forth above and below Stirling are extremely tortuous.— Encyclopædia Britannica

3. pl. Sand hills with the surrounding level or undulating land, such as occur along the seashore, a river bank, etc. Scottish

Golf may be played on any park or common, but its original home is the “links” or common land which is found by the seashore, where the short close tuft, the sandy subsoil, and the many natural obstacles in the shape of bents, whins, sand holes, and banks, supply the conditions which are essential to the proper pursuit of the game.— Encyc. of Sport.

4. pl. Hence, any such piece of ground where golf is played; a golf course.

To connect or unite with a link or as with a link; to join; to attach; to unite; to couple.

All the tribes and nations that composed it [the Roman Empire] were linked together, not only by the same laws and the same government, but by all the facilities of commodious intercourse, and of frequent communication.— John Chetwode Eustace

To be connected.

No one generation could link with the other.— Edmund Burke

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: 1913 supplement

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

1.<file system> hard link or symbolic link.

2.<hypertext> hypertext link.

(1997-10-22)