The movement or play that occurs along the length of a shaft or rotating rod, measured as the allowable distance it can move end-to-end in machinery.
From 'end' plus 'shake' (from Old Norse 'skaka', meaning to shake), a mechanical engineering term describing axial movement in rotating equipment, emerging in industrial maintenance vocabulary.
Machinists measure 'endshake' to prevent catastrophic equipment failure—too much play means bearings wear out, but zero tolerance means metal expands from heat and seizes, so engineers learned to allow controlled wiggle.
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