ungeared

Ungeared is an adjective used to describe systems or instruments that operate without gearing. It has several domain-specific meanings, most commonly in finance and in mechanical engineering.

In corporate finance, gearing refers to the ratio of debt to equity. An ungeared (or un-geared) company has little or no net debt; its capital structure is effectively all equity. In practice, ungeared metrics are used to strip out the effects of leverage, yielding unlevered measures such as ungeared beta (the unlevered version of beta) or ungeared cost of capital. Analysts may compare ungeared returns or cash flows to assess operating performance independent of financing decisions.

In engineering and machinery, ungeared describes gearless or direct-drive arrangements. A system without a gear train transmits power with no reduction or multiplication of speed and torque, which can affect efficiency, speed, and startup torque. In bicycles and some motors, the term is sometimes used informally to refer to gearless or single-speed configurations, though “single-speed” is the more common term in cycling.

Ungeared is relatively specialized, and the spelling with or without a hyphen varies by domain. It is important to distinguish ungeared or unlevered versions of terms when reading technical literature, as the intended meaning can differ between financial and mechanical contexts.