Definition of "fulcrum" []

• The point or support on which a lever pivots. (noun)
• Zoology An anatomical structure that acts as a hinge or a point of support. (noun)
• An agent through which vital powers are exercised. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The fulcrum is the theological and philosophical inclinations a person brings to science and evolution."
• "What Goodman calls the "fulcrum" of the museum is the courtroom where in 1950 Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver and his committee held hearings into organized crime."
• "Where Mr. Farrell and Mr. Kersten part company as biographers is in their handling of a particular episode that forms what the latter calls the "fulcrum" of Darrow's career."