<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>a stick, wand, staff, or the like, of wood, metal, or other material.</li><li>a straight, slender shoot or stem of any woody plant, whether still growing or cut from the plant.</li><li>fishing rod.</li><li>(in plastering or mortaring) a straightedge moved along screeds to even the plaster between them.</li><li>a stick used for measuring.</li><li>Archaic. a unit of linear measure, 5.5 yards or 16.5 feet (5.029 meters); linear perch or pole.</li><li>Archaic. a unit of square measure, 30.25 square yards (25.29 sq. m); square perch or pole.</li><li>a stick, or a bundle of sticks or switches bound together, used as an instrument of punishment.</li><li>punishment or discipline: Not one to spare the rod, I sent him to bed without dinner.</li><li>a wand, staff, or scepter carried as a symbol of office, authority, power, etc.</li><li>authority, sway, or rule, especially when tyrannical.</li><li>lightning rod.</li><li>a slender bar or tube for draping towels over, suspending a shower curtain, etc.</li><li>Bible. a branch of a family; tribe.</li><li>a pattern, drawn on wood in full size, of one section of a piece of furniture.</li><li>Slang. a pistol or revolver.</li><li>Vulgar. the penis.</li><li>Anatomy. one of the rodlike cells in the retina of the eye, sensitive to low intensities of light. Compare cone (def 5).</li><li>Bacteriology. a rod-shaped microorganism.</li><li>Also called leveling rod, Surveying. a light pole, conspicuously marked with graduations, held upright and read through a surveying instrument in leveling or stadia surveying.</li><li>Metallurgy. round metal stock for drawing and cutting into slender bars.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb</strong></p><ul><li>(used with object) to furnish or equip with a rod or rods, especially lightning rods.</li><li>to even (plaster or mortar) with a rod.</li><li>Metallurgy. to reinforce (the core of a mold) with metal rods.</li></ul>