sextantとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From Latin sextāns.

発音

• IPA: /ˈsɛk.stənt/
• 韻: -ɛkstənt

名詞

sextant (plural sextants)

1. (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 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 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.

2. (geometry) One sixth of a circle or disc; a sector with an angle of 60°.
3. (dentistry) One of six groups of adjacent teeth, excluding the wisdom teeth.
4. (botany) A radial cell division of segments in three series, a sixth part of the original.

参考

アナグラム

• exstant