sextant
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Sextant
English
Etymology
Pronunciation
Noun
sextant (plural sextants)
- (nautical) A navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude.
- 1674, Robert Hooke, Animadversions on the Firſt Part of the Machina Coelestis of the […] Aſtronomer Johannes Hevelius […] , page 43:
- […] I can do more with a Quadrant, Sextant or Octant, of 1 foot Radius, furniſhed with Teleſcopical Sights and Screws, then [sic] can poſſibly be done with any other Inſtrument, furniſhed only with Common Sights, though 10, 20, 30, nay threeſcore foot Radius; […]
- 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:
- I took our position every morning with my crude sextant; but the results were always most unsatisfactory.
- 1981, Saul J. Adelman, Benjamin Adelman, Bound for the Stars, →ISBN, page 227:
- Moskowitz and Devereux have designed a hyperaccurate sextant for interstellar navigation based upon the design of the sextant used by the Apollo astronauts.
- (geometry) One sixth of a circle or disc; a sector with an angle of 60°.
- (dentistry) One of six groups of adjacent teeth, excluding the wisdom teeth.
- (botany) A radial cell division of segments in three series, a sixth part of the original.
Translations
See also
Anagrams
Czech
Noun
sextant m inan
Declension
French
Pronunciation
Noun
sextant m (plural sextants)
Further reading
- “sextant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Romanian
Etymology
Noun
sextant m (plural sextanți)
Declension
Swedish
Noun
sextant c
Declension
nominative | genitive | ||
---|---|---|---|
singular | indefinite | sextant | sextants |
definite | sextanten | sextantens | |
plural | indefinite | sextanter | sextanters |
definite | sextanterna | sextanternas |
References
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