- a stick, wand, staff, or the like, of wood, metal, or other material.
- a straight, slender shoot or stem of any woody plant, whether still growing or cut from the plant.
- fishing rod.
- (in plastering or mortaring) a straightedge moved along screeds to even the plaster between them.
- a stick used for measuring.
- a unit of linear measure, 5.5 yards or 16.5 feet (5.029 meters); linear perch or pole.
- a unit of square measure, 30.25 square yards (25.29 sq. m); square perch or pole.
- a stick, or a bundle of sticks or switches bound together, used as an instrument of punishment.
- punishment or discipline: Not one to spare the rod, I sent him to bed without dinner.
- a wand, staff, or scepter carried as a symbol of office, authority, power, etc.
- authority, sway, or rule, especially when tyrannical.
- lightning rod.
- a slender bar or tube for draping towels over, suspending a shower curtain, etc.
- a branch of a family; tribe.
- a pattern, drawn on wood in full size, of one section of a piece of furniture.
- Slang.
- a pistol or revolver.
- the penis.
- one of the rodlike cells in the retina of the eye, sensitive to low intensities of light.
- a rod-shaped microorganism.
- a light pole, conspicuously marked with graduations, held upright and read through a surveying instrument in leveling or stadia surveying.
- round metal stock for drawing and cutting into slender bars.
- to furnish or equip with a rod or rods, especially lightning rods.
- to even (plaster or mortar) with a rod.
- to reinforce (the core of a mold) with metal rods.
- a slim cylinder of metal, wood, etc; stick or shaft
- a switch or bundle of switches used to administer corporal punishment
- any of various staffs of insignia or office
- power, esp of a tyrannical kind
- a straight slender shoot, stem, or cane of a woody plant
- See fishing rod
- Also called: pole, perch
- a unit of length equal to 5 1/2 yards
- a unit of square measure equal to 30 1/4 square yards
- a straight narrow board marked with the dimensions of a piece of joinery, as the spacing of steps on a staircase
- a metal shaft that transmits power in axial reciprocating motion
- surveying another name (esp US) for staff 1 (def. 8)
- any of the elongated cylindrical cells in the retina of the eye, containing the visual purple (rhodopsin), which are sensitive to dim light but not to colour
- any rod-shaped bacterium
- a slang word for penis
- US slang name for pistol (def. 1)
- short for hot rod
