The term "gimbal" may be applied in various ways:

 

A device with two mutually perpendicular and intersecting axes of rotation on which an engine or other object may be mounted.

 

In a gyro, a support which provides the spin axis with a degree of freedom.

 

The rotation of a rocket's motor nozzle to control the direction of thrust and hence help steer a spacecraft; the nozzles of the Space Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters, for example, could gimbal up to 6°.