toggle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A pin, rod, or crosspiece fitted or inserted into a loop in a rope, chain, or strap to prevent slipping, to tighten, or to hold an attached object.
2. n. A device or an apparatus with a toggle joint.
3. v. To furnish or fasten with a toggle.
4. v. To alternate between two or more electronic, mechanical, or computer-related options, usually by the operation of a single switch or keystroke: toggled back and forth between two windows on the screen.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A bar spanning (within) an opening in a tank or other structure, to which a lifting chain or sling can be secured in order to lift the structure. Also toggle-pin.
2. To fasten (skins) together with wooden pins. Modern Amer.
3. To lift or attach to a hoisting chain by means of a cross-bar inserted in a hole or angle. The bar or toggle is inserted in the hole by passing it in parallel to the lifting chain. When in place it is turned at right angles and spans the hole or opening, and receives the stress of lifting. The toggle-bar must be longer than the diameter of the hole, or the space across the span of the opening used.
4. n. Nautical, a pin placed through the bight or eye of a rope, block-strap, or bolt, to keep it in its place, or to put the bight or eye of another rope upon, and thus secure them both together; also, a pin passed through a link of a chain which is itself passed through a link of the same or a different chain.
5. n. Two rods or plates hinged together by a toggle-joint: a mechanical device for transmitting force or pressure at a right angle with its direction. See toggle-joint. and cut under stone-breaker.
6. To fix or fasten (itself in something) like a toggle-iron; used reflexively, to stick fast.

Wiktionary

1. n. A wooden pin tapering toward both ends with a groove around its middle, fixed transversely in the eye of a rope to be secured to any other loop, ring, or bight.
2. n. A kind of button or frog capable of being readily engaged and disengaged for temporary purposes.
3. n. nautical A wooden or metal pin, short rod, crosspiece or similar used for securing a loop in a rope or chain, etc. (often temporarily) to another, e.g. a sea painter to a lifeboat. (FM 55-501)
4. n. A toggle switch; a switch, usually with two positions, activated by a lever; an on/off switch.
5. n. Scouting A circle of leather, plastic (Cub Scouts) etc, resembling a napkin holder to keep the neckerchief in place.
6. v. to alternate between two positions using a single switch or lever.
7. v. to switch between alternate states.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Naut.) A wooden pin tapering toward both ends with a groove around its middle, fixed transversely in the eye of a rope to be secured to any other loop or bight or ring; a kind of button or frog capable of being readily engaged and disengaged for temporary purposes.
2. n. (Mach.) Two rods or plates connected by a toggle joint.
3. n. A toggle switch.
4. v. (Computer programming) To change the value of (a program variable) by activating a toggle switch.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a fastener consisting of a peg or pin or crosspiece that is inserted into an eye at the end of a rope or a chain or a cable in order to fasten it to something (as another rope or chain or cable)
2. n. any instruction that works first one way and then the other; it turns something on the first time it is used and then turns it off the next time
3. v. fasten with, or as if with, a toggle
4. n. a hinged switch that can assume either of two positions
5. v. release by a toggle switch
6. v. provide with a toggle or toggles