ƿeard

\kruh-NOM-i-ter\

noun 1. a timepiece or timing device with a special mechanism for ensuring and adjusting its accuracy, for use in determining longitude at sea or for any purpose where very exact measurement of time is required.  2. any timepiece, especially a wristwatch, designed for the highest accuracy.

Quotes

Items both functional and beautiful are on display: compasses, scaled models of canoes, nautical atlases, and astrological texts, as well as an astrolabe, octant, and cross-staff. The marine chronometer (above) is a very precise clock made by William Bond & Son, Boston, circa 1860. -- Nell Porter Brown, "Finding Our Way," Harvard Magazine, March–April, 2015

Origin

Chronometer entered English in the early 1700s from the Greek root chrónos meaning "time," and the New Latin -metrum, which derives from the Greek métron meaning "measure." \vair-ee-AWR-uhm, -OHR-\ adjective 1. containing different versions of the text by various editors: a variorum edition of Shakespeare.  2. containing many notes and commentaries by a number of scholars or critics: a variorum text of Cicero. Quotes The “Callas Remastered” lineup reproduces Callas’s complete studio recordings, omitting nothing, while live material has been rigorously excluded. As it turns out, the conceptual logic gives the package a strange inconsistency—and a whiff of the variorum. -- Matthew Gurewitsch, "La Divina Goes High-Def," Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2014 Origin Variorum is short for the Latin phase ēditiō cum notīs variōrum meaning "edition with the notes of various persons." It came to English in the 1700s. \SAS-truh-guh, SAH-struh-, sa-STROO-, sah-\ noun 1. Usually, sastrugi. ridges of snow formed on a snowfield by the action of the wind. Quotes And then we ended up just outside the station, on the empty plateau, to watch asastruga grow. In the winters, great windstorms sculpt these sastrugi into magnificent forms that can be ten feet high. -- Gabrielle Walker, Antarctica: An Intimate Portrait of a Mysterious Continent, 2013 Origin Sastruga is derived from the Russian term zastrugát meaning “to plane, shave down (wood).” It entered English in the mid-1800s. \AHY-suhm\ adjective 1. Archaic. pleasant to look at. Quotes I thought not I should meet an eyesome maiden, / But found one there. -- Thomas Hardy, "The Seven Times," Late Lyrics and Earlier, 1922 Origin Eyesome entered English in the late 1500s. The suffix –some is used in formation of adjectives and means “tending to; causing.” \sur-kuhm-VOLV\ verb 1. to revolve or wind about. Quotes Upon my soul, I believe there is not a Letter in those words, round which a world of imagery does not circumvolve… -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Sir Humphrey Davy, October 9, 1800, in Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1, 1895 Origin Circumvolve came to English in the late 1500s from the Latin circumvolvere meaning "to roll round." \fi-LOO-muh-nist\ noun 1. a collector of matchbooks and matchboxes. Quotes McDevitt’s collecting of matchboxes might sound idiosyncratic, but it’s a hobby popular enough that there’s an actual term for it—phillumeny, which roughly translates from the Greek and Latin to "lover of light." Hundreds of phillumenist sites have cropped up on the web, saving these designs from obsolescence. -- Carey Dunne, "Exquisite Matchbox Art Proves Smaller Is Better," Fast Company, December 9, 2014 Origin Phillumenist Phillumenist came to English in the mid-1900s from the Greek philosmeaning "loving," the Latin lūmen meaning "light." The suffix –ist denotes a person who practices or is concerned with something.