octant
IPA: ˈɑktʌnt
noun
- The eighth part of a circle; an arc of 45 degrees.
- (astrology) The aspect of two planets that are 45°, or one-eighth of a circle, apart.
- (geometry) The eighth part of a disc; a sector of 45 degrees; half a quadrant.
- (nautical) An instrument for measuring angles, particularly of elevation.
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Examples of "octant" in Sentences
- Octant in three dimensional space.
- Octant may refer to one of the following.
- Each octant was equipped with an OZ chamber.
- It lies in the dim constellation Octans, the Octant.
- Only the second is well known and is the familiar octant.
- An octant consists of an upstream and a downstream half octant.
- The n dimensional generalization of the quadrant and octant is the orthant.
- An octant could be half the size of a Davis quadrant with no increase in error.
- An octant is one of 8 parts of the two dimensional Euclidean coordinate system.
- Wesley found a packet of small iron tools, an octant and a massive spiked club.
- It was in its octant, and showed a crescent finely traced on the dark background of the sky.
- John Paul’s deliverance from the hardship of the lower deck was a brass instrument called an octant.
- Curved an eighth of circle, hence “octant”, fixed with small mirrors and etched by degrees, an octant can tell a mariner the angle of the sun to the horizon at high noon.
- Charred remains of the boat, a burned octant, and a few unexploded cartridges were all that remained of the meager outfit upon which they depended to take them to the mouth of the river, a distance of over 250 miles.
- From a private collection, offerings include several important pairs of globes by Newton, a sextant by Ramsden, an octant by George Jones, equinoctial dials, astrolabes, chronometers, microscopes and nautical antiques.
- Advances in the development of these instruments made such calculations easier and more precise, for example: the "course protractor", the "cuadrant", the "octant and the sextant", and the "longitude clock", which was a precision chronometer.