SPECULUM • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Speculum

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noun

Speculum n. (pl. L. specula, E. speculum)

A mirror, or looking-glass; especially, a metal mirror, as in Greek and Roman archaeology.

A reflector of polished metal, especially one used in reflecting telescopes. See Speculum metal, below.

(Surg.) An instrument for dilating certain passages of the body, and throwing light within them, thus facilitating examination or surgical operations.

(Zool.) A bright and lustrous patch of color found on the wings of ducks and some other birds. It is usually situated on the distal portions of the secondary quills, and is much more brilliant in the adult male than in the female.

Speculum metal, a hard, brittle alloy used for making the reflectors of telescopes and other instruments, usually consisting of copper and tin in various proportions, one of the best being that in which there are 126.4 parts of copper to 58.9 parts of tin, with sometimes a small proportion of arsenic, antimony, or zinc added to improve the whiteness.

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Etymology of 'Speculum'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Speculum" Quotes from Famous Books

... speculum suum, mundet spiritum suum, quisquis sitit videre Deum suum. Exterso autem speculo et diu diligenter inspecto, incipit ei quaedam divini luminis claritas interlucere, et immensus quidam insolitae visionis ...

— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... understood them and believed that they were in sympathy with him. As far as the birds or wolves were concerned, it was no great matter, but Francis did not stop with vertebrates or even with organic forms. "Nor was it surprising," said the "Speculum," "if fire and other creatures sometimes revered and obeyed him; for, as we who were with him very frequently saw, he held them in such affection and so much delighted in them, and his soul was moved by such pity ...

— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... nimble Mercury flitting moth like in the beard of the sun to dull Neptune sagging in his cold course twenty six hundred million miles away; from the half inch orb of Hipparchus's naked eye, to the six feet speculum of Rosse's awful tube; from the primeval belief in one world studded around with skyey torch lights, to the modern conviction of octillions of inhabited worlds all governed by one law constitutes the most astonishing chapter in the history of the human mind. Every step of ...

— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... of laryngoscope shown in Fig. I (A, B, C) is made in adult's, child's, and infant's sizes. The instruments have a removable slide on the top of the tubular portion of the speculum to allow the removal of the laryngoscope after the insertion of the bronchoscope through it. The infant size is made in two forms, one with, the other without a removable slide; with either form the larynx of an infant can be exposed in but a few seconds and a definite diagnosis made, ...

— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... may possibly have been not entirely unknown to the mediaeval scholars. There are two celebrated works which might by some be classed amongst works of this description. The one is the "Speculum Sapientiae," attributed to St. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, but of a considerably later origin, and existing only in Latin. It is divided into four books, and consists of long conversations conducted by fictitious characters under the figures the beasts ...

— Aesop's Fables • Aesop