A body suspended from a fixed support so that it swings freely back and forth under the influence of gravity, commonly used to regulate various devices such as clocks
To swing or fall sideways on a rope Big wall climbers sometimes use pendulums intentionally to reach either distant anchors or a different crack system (e g The Big Swing on The Nose, El Capitan) More often, however, a pendulum results from a fall on a traverse where there is inadequate protection in place
You can use the idea of a pendulum and the way it swings regularly as a way of talking about regular changes in a situation or in people's opinions. The political pendulum has swung in favour of the liberals. Body suspended from a fixed point so that it can swing back and forth under the influence of gravity. A simple pendulum consists of a bob (weight) suspended at the end of a string. The periodic motion of a pendulum is constant, but can be made longer or shorter by increasing or decreasing the length of the string. A change in the mass of the bob alone does not affect the period. Because of their constancy, pendulums were long used to regulate the movement of clocks. Other, special kinds of pendulums are used to measure the value of g, the acceleration due to gravity, and to show that the earth rotates on its axis (see Foucault pendulum)