A Quick and Simple Dictionary

rod

1. Proper noun.  A nickname for the male given names Rodney and Roderick.
2. Noun.  A straight, round stick, shaft, bar, cane, or staff.
3. Noun.  (context, fishing) A long slender usually tapering pole used for angling; fishing rod.
4. Noun.  A stick, pole, or bundle of switches or twigs (such as a birch), used for personal defense or to administer corporal punishment by whipping.
5. Noun.  An implement resembling and/or supplanting a rod (particularly a cane) that is used for corporal punishment, and metonymically called '''the rod''', regardless of its actual shape and composition.
6. Noun.  A stick used to measure distance, by using its established length or task-specific temporary marks along its length, or by dint of specific graduated marks.
7. Noun.  (archaic) A unit of length. Equal to a pole, a perch, ¼ chain, 5½ yards, 16½ feet, or exactly 5.0292 meters.
8. Noun.  An implement held vertically and viewed through an optical surveying instrument such as a transit, used to measure distance in land surveying and construction layout; an engineer's rod, surveyor's rod, leveling rod, ranging rod. The modern (US) engineer's or surveyor's rod commonly is eight or ten feet long and often designed to extend higher. In former times a surveyor's rod often was a single wooden pole or composed of multiple sectioned and socketed pieces, and besides serving as a sighting target was used to measure distance on the ground horizontally, hence for convenience was of one rod or pole in length, that is, 5½ yards..
9. Noun.  (archaic) A unit of area equal to a square rod, 30¼ square yards or 1/160 acre.
10. Noun.  A straight bar that unites moving parts of a machine, for holding parts together as a connecting rod or for transferring power as a drive-shaft.
11. Noun.  (context, anatomy) Short for rod cell, a rod-shaped cell in the eye that is sensitive to light.
12. Noun.  (biology) Any of a number of long, slender microorganisms.
13. Noun.  (chemistry) '''A stirring rod''': a glass rod, typically about 6 inches to 1 foot long and 1/8 to 1/4 inch in diameter that can be used to stir liquids in flasks or beakers.
14. Noun.  (slang) A pistol; a gun.
15. Noun.  (slang) A penis; the male rod.
16. Noun.  (slang) A hot rod, an automobile or other passenger motor vehicle modified to run faster and often with exterior cosmetic alterations, especially one based originally on a pre-1940s model or (currently) denoting any older vehicle thus modified.
17. Noun.  (context, ufology) rod-shaped objects which appear in photographs and videos traveling at high speed, not seen by the person recording the event, often associated with extraterrestrial entities.