Rod

Laver, Rod (Rodney George Laver), 1938-, Australian tennis player. He left school at age 15 to pursue tennis and in 1962 became the first male grand-slam winner in tennis since Don Budge in 1938. Noted for his extraordinarily powerful serve, Laver turned professional in 1962. He won the grand slam again in 1969, the only person ever to do so twice. In 1971 he became the first professional tennis player to pass the $1 million mark in total earnings.

rod: see English units of measurement.

Automobile rebuilt or modified for high speed, fast acceleration, or sporty appearance. A wide range of automobiles may be called hot rods, including some of those used in drag racing as well as those used in recreational cruising. They may be composed of used or new parts. Some are intended primarily for exhibition.

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Arrangement of mechanical parts used to obtain a reciprocating straight-line motion from a rotating shaft. It serves the same purpose as a slider-crank mechanism and is particularly useful when the required stroke of the reciprocating motion is small in comparison with the dimensions of the driving shaft. Because an eccentric can be attached anywhere along a shaft, it is unnecessary to form any part of the shaft into a crank. Eccentrics are seldom used to transmit large forces because friction loss would be high; they are commonly used to drive the valve gears of engines.

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(born Aug. 9, 1938, Rockhampton, Queen., Austl.) Australian tennis player. He joined Australia's Davis Cup team when he was 18 years old and remained on the squad until 1962. Nicknamed “Rocket,” he became the second male player (after Don Budge) to win the grand slam (1962) and the first to repeat the feat (1969). He turned professional in 1963 and in 1971 became the first tennis player to surpass $1 million in career prize money.

Learn more about Laver, Rod(ney George) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Rod may mean:

• Rod (geometry), a straight and slender stick; a wand; a cylinder; hence, any slender bar
• Rod cell, a cell found in the retina that is sensitive to light/dark (black/white)
• Rod (length), an Imperial unit of length, also known as the pole or perch
• Rod (cryptozoology), observational artifacts produced by rapidly flying animals
• Rod (god), a Slavic god
• Rods (Tarot Suit)
• Railway Operating Division
• Fishing rod
• Lightning rod
• Connecting rod, in an internal combustion engine
• Divining rod, two rods believed by some to find water in a practice known as dowsing
• Birch rod, made out of twigs from birch or other trees for corporal punishment
• Switch (rod), a piece of wood as used as a staff or for corporal punishment, or a bundle of such switches
• Ring of Death, a common malfunction of the Xbox 360

Rod may also be:

• Eubacterium with the shape of a rod; a bacillus in the loose sense
• Penis (slang)
• Gun (slang)

People with the given name Rod

Often as an abbreviation of such names as Roderick and Rodney:

• Rod Stewart, rock musician
• Rod Laver (born 1938), Australian former tennis player
• Rod Steiger (1925–2002), American actor
• Rod Flanders, a fictional character on The Simpsons
• Rod From Avenue Q, a character in the stage musical Avenue Q
• Rod Serling, Creator of the 1960's show The Twilight Zone
• Rod Quantock, Australian stand-up comedian
• Rod Roddy, Game show announcer, best known for The Price is Right
• Darren Hampton, Tesco Meir Park

People with the surname Rod

• Edouard Rod, French-Swiss novelist, 1857-1910
• Johnny Rod, American bass guitar player

See also

• Hrod
• Dowel
• Hot rod, often also referred to as 'rod'
• Pole
• Rebar
• Rood, an old English unit equal to quarter an acre
• Stick, any long object
• Structural steel
• R.O.D., an acronym for the Read or Die anime