Detente in the world of electronics also means points of higher rotatinal resistance in an audio or video attenuating switch. For example, there are volume knobs on amplifiers and mixing consoles that have continuous rotation or may have "detentes" at, say, each 2 decibel increment to imporve the accuracy of the volume setting.

I think you'll find that meaning is usually spelled detent - same etymology though.

"stop," "catch," "click," might be Type-1 terms for the Type-2 "detent," for which I was appalled not to find a synonym in thesaurus.com

Forgive me for bubbling this back up, I won't make it a habit--but I'd still like to find a more exact synonym for this form of detent--thanks all

forgive me for high-jacking, I won't make it a habit; but these go to eleven.

-joe (spinal tap) friday

edit: The Times says that 'up to eleven' has been added to the Shorter Oxford.

tsu, thanks for the link

But still looking for Type-1 synonym

Dog and rachet are also related words but are no closer (perhaps farther) than those you've already given - all of them really require some qualifying phrase to limit them to what a detent is.

If this is the def. that you want a simpler or more common synonym for what about "setting" as in "I turned it to a higher setting."

Zed: Yes! that's a good one

notch

eta: Also very good, thank you

Tho as Myr says,there's apparently no really close synonym

so I open Chris Moore's You Suck* this morning, and there on page 3, in another stunning bit of diegogarcity [crossthreading], I read, "It was if his nerves had been dialed up to eleven."

-joe (*it's a vampirish story) friday