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Link

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. (Eustace)

Origin: Linked; Linking.

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. . The link of brotherhood, by which One common Maker bound me to the kind. (Cowper) And so by double links enchained themselves in lovers life. (Gascoigne)

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

4. (Science: physics) 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. (Science: medicine) 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. 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.

7. (Science: chemistry) a bond of affinity, or a unit of valence between atoms; applied to a unit of chemical force or attraction.

8. Sausages; because linked together.

Origin: oe. Linke, as. Hlence; akin to Sw. Lank ring of a chain, dan. Laenke chain, Icel. Hlekkr; cf. G. Gelenk joint, link, ring of a chain, lenken to bend.