Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Quadrant   /kwˈɑdrənt/   Listen
Quadrant

noun
1.
A quarter of the circumference of a circle.  Synonym: quarter-circle.
2.
Any of the four areas into which a plane is divided by two orthogonal coordinate axes.
3.
The area enclosed by two perpendicular radii of a circle.
4.
A measuring instrument for measuring altitude of heavenly bodies.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Quadrant" Quotes from Famous Books



... have been the barometer, for I know he had them both," resumed the aunt. "Barometer, or thermometer, it do n't make any great difference; or quadrant, or sextant. They are all instruments, and sometimes he used one, and sometimes another. Sailors take on board the sun, too, and have an instrument for that, as well as one to weigh the weather with. Sometimes ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... flag of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the Caymanian coat of arms centered on the outer half of the flag; the coat of arms includes a pineapple and turtle above a shield with three stars (representing the three islands) and a scroll at the bottom bearing the motto HE HATH ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... much and how variegated pain you may have in the abdomen, or how high your temperature may run, if you are not distinctly sore on firm pressure down in this right lower or southwest quadrant of the abdomen,—but be careful not to press too hard, it isn't safe,—you may feel fairly sure that you haven't got appendicitis. If you are, you may still not have it, but you'd better send for the doctor, to ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... lif, you know, at Abednego's, in de Quadrant; his dabels is goot; ve vill blay dere, if you vill." And I said I would: and it was agreed that, one Saturday night, when Jemmy was at the Opera, we should go to the Baron's rooms, and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the sailor in his wandering way, See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day. His lifted quadrant to the eye displays From adverse skies the counteracting rays; And marks, as devious sails bewilder'd roll, Each nice ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... I think I could work out the latitude and longitude if I knew something about a quadrant, but I have never seen one, and have no idea of its use. But what I wanted to ask you first of all was the meaning of some of these words which I cannot ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... twine, canvas, lines, sails, cordage, an eight and twenty gallon cask of water, and the carpenter to take his tool chest. Mr. Samuel got 150lbs of bread, with a small quantity of rum and wine. He also got a quadrant and compass into the boat; but was forbidden, on pain of death, to touch either map, ephemeris, book of astronomical observations, sextant, time-keeper, or any of ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... blue, with the flag of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the Anguillan coat of arms centered in the outer half of the flag; the coat of arms depicts three orange dolphins in an interlocking circular design on a white background with blue wavy ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... curving, as every projectile must curve, from the horizontal line in which it moved at the first moment. Arrived at D, the ball will still be at the same height above the surface, and its velocity must be unabated. It will therefore continue in its path and move round another quadrant of the circle without getting nearer to the surface. In this manner the projectile will travel completely round the whole globe, coming back again to C and then taking another start in the same path. If we could abolish the mountain and the cannon at the top, we should ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... room in Admiral Guinea's house: fireplace, arm-chair, and table with Bible, L., towards the front; door C., with window on each side, the window on the R. practicable; doors R. and L., back; corner cupboard, a brass-strapped sea-chest fixed to the wall and floor, R.; cutlasses, telescopes, sextant, quadrant, a calendar, and several maps upon the wall; a ship clock; three wooden chairs; a dresser against wall, R.C.; on the chimney-piece the model of a brig and several shells. The centre bare of furniture. Through the windows and the door, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... is here exhibited; nor is the sight of a jet d'eau, or the murmur of an artificial cascade, undelightful in a hot day, let the Nature-mongers say what they please. The prince's cabinet, for a private collection, is not a mean one; but I was sorry to see his quadrant rusted to the globe almost, and the poor planetarium out of all repair. The great stuffed dog is a curiosity however; I never saw any of the canine species so large, and withal so beautiful, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... "Let no step of thine recede. Behind me gain the mountain, till to us Some practis'd guide appear." That eminence Was lofty that no eye might reach its point, And the side proudly rising, more than line From the mid quadrant to the centre drawn. I wearied thus began: "Parent belov'd! Turn, and behold how I remain alone, If thou stay not." —" My son!" He straight reply'd, "Thus far put forth thy strength; "and to a track Pointed, that, on this side projecting, round Circles the hill. His words so ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... huge sea-chest, an old telescope more than a yard long, and cased in leather; a quadrant, a hammock, with the bedding rolled up in it, a tobacco-box, the enormous old Family Bible in which the names of his father, mother, brothers, and sisters were recorded; and a brown teapot with half a lid. This latter had belonged to the captain's mother, and, being fond of it, as it reminded ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... that the rust is not rust, or that it is a rust sui generis, intentionally formed on the steel for some mysterious virtue in it, and that the staff and astrolabe of a shepherd-astronomer are identical with, or equivalent to, the quadrant and telescope of Newton or Herschel? Or will he not rather give the curious inquisitor joy of his mighty discoveries, and the credit of them for ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... laid by Flamstead, on the 10th of August, 1675. It stands 160 feet above low-water mark, and principally consists of two separate buildings: the first contains three rooms on the ground-floor—viz. the transit-room, towards the east, the quadrant-room, towards the west, and the assistant's sitting and calculating-room, in the middle; above which is his bed-room, the latter being furnished with sliding shutters in the roof. In the transit-room is an eight-feet transit-instrument, with an axis ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... Mississippi, and other small watery streams, I could blot out a star with my foot, but I would not engage to jump that distance," and asked how he knew when he had got his leg at the right elevation. But he regarded his legs as no less accurate than a pair of screw-dividers or an ordinary quadrant, and appeared to have a painful recollection of every degree and minute in the arc which they described; and he would have had me believe that there was a kind of hitch in his hip-joint which answered the purpose. I suggested that he should connect his two ankles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... as the tactic got under way. Gunderson's ship traveled in a long, looping spiral that drew the pirate into the upper quadrant of space. His path free, Preston guided his ship under the other two and toward unobstructed freedom. As he looked back, he saw Gunderson steaming for the pirate on a ...
— Postmark Ganymede • Robert Silverberg

... day of the month of flowers, and the last on the 27th of October. Three weeks later the last girder was in place. All had been done with the precision of machinery, no pillar varying half an inch from its line. Machinery, indeed, rolled the quadrant-shaped sections of each column and riveted their flanges together with hydraulic hammers; great steam-derricks dropped each on its appointed seat; and the main tasks of manual labor in either building were painting, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... where each block of buildings reproduces its neighbour, as though they had all been stamped by one gigantic die!" Such an architectural ideal is inconceivable to me. It is all very well for a few short streets, for a square or two, for a quadrant like that of Regent Street, or a crescent or circus like those of Bath or Edinburgh. But to apply it throughout a whole quarter of a city, or even throughout the endless vistas of a great American ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... mathematician, great in his way, and afterward inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was for ever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... into four parts.] Quadrisection. — N. quadrisection, quadripartition[obs3]; quartering &c. v; fourth; quart; quarter, quartern[obs3]; farthing (i.e. fourthing)[obs3]; quadrant. V. quarter, divide into four parts. Adj. quartered &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... way sea-birds and birds from the land; there were gulls, electric white and black man-of-war birds, butterflies, and they all seemed imprisoned under a great drifting dome of glass. As they went, travelling like things without volition and in a dream, with a hum and a roar the south-west quadrant of the cyclone burst on the island, and the whole bitter business began ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... his eyes, even at this late day, and both see and hear it all again—even as he can see the unbroken row of dingy dwellings that lined his way back from Quadrant Mews to Frognall Street corner: all drab and unkempt, all sporting in their fan-lights the legend and lure, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... southern quadrant of the sky we discovered an entirely different sunset—what would be accounted a very excellent orange-and-red sunset anywhere, with grey clouds hanging low and lighted and tinted on ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... and the tiny impulses swelled in strength and poured out through the hull of the ship in a great cone that penetrated Earth's atmosphere in a quadrant that extended from Baffin land to Omaha, and from Hawaii to Labrador. The waves swept through skin and bone and entered the sluggish gelatinous brain of sentient beings, setting up in those organs the same thoughts and pictures ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss

... he had made to Vasco da Gama, the king sent him a Gujerat pilot named Malemo Cana, a man well instructed in navigation, understanding the use of charts, of the compass and the quadrant, and who rendered the most important service to the expedition. After a stay of nine days the fleet weighed anchor for Calicut. The coasting plan hitherto pursued was now to be abandoned, and the time was come ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant wide, With the many larks of London flaring up ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... science were employed by the constructors of the French Metric System; but the progress of science in seventy years has shown that every element of their calculations was erroneous. They tried to measure a quadrant of the earth's circumference, supposing the meridian to be circular; but Schubert has shown that that is far from being the case; and that no two meridians are alike; and Sir John Herschel, and the best geologists, show cause to believe that the form of the globe is constantly changing; so that ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... together without my needing to touch it. I contrived, after many failures, to take an observation on the second day, for the sky was then clear, and I had all the necessary appliances excepting only the skill to use the quadrant with a seaman's confidence. I made out that I was to the northwest of the Faroe Islands, and I made no doubt that I should sight one of that group in the course of that same day or ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... and they were ordered to be apprehended, and put into the castle. One of the men, and the woman, fled into the woods; but were soon taken. They confessed they were English convicts, and that they had made their escape from Botany Bay. They had been supplied with a quadrant, a compass, a chart, and some small arms and ammunition, from a Dutch ship that lay there; and the expedition was conducted by the Governor's fisherman, whose time of transportation was expired. He was a good seaman, and a tolerable navigator. They dragged along the ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... the steward, coming forward from the quarter-deck, where the captain had just been taking his noon observation; sweeping the vast horizon with his quadrant, like a dandy circumnavigating the dress-circle of an amphitheater with ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... one day, told him that he had received orders from the captain to teach him navigation, and, greatly to his surprise, put a quadrant into his hands, and showed ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... cried out: "You have cleared their decks, my hearties!" Aloft, a man was seen to clamber from our mainyard into the very top of the Englishman, where he threw a hand-grenade, as I thought, down her main hatch. An instant after an explosion came like a, clap of thunder in our faces, and a great quadrant of light flashed as high as the 'Serapis's' trucks, and through a breach in her bulwarks I saw men running with only the collars of their shirts upon ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... May, the observatory was set up, and the astronomical quadrant, together with some other instruments, was taken on shore. When, on the next morning, Mr. Cook and Mr. Green landed for the purpose of fixing the quadrant in a situation for use, to their inexpressible surprise and concern it was not to be found. It had been deposited in a tent reserved for ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... lamps as I got to the arcade in the Quadrant—and there I ran against the cheerful Barty. Joy! what a change in the aspect of everything! It rained light! He pulled a new book out of his pocket, which he had just borrowed from some fair lady—and showed it to me. It ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... tram; and perhaps this would cost less and keep better than a metalled road. The twisting of the track, 'without rhyme or reason,' reminded me of the snakiest paths in Central Africa. Our course, as the map shows, was in every quadrant of ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... figure accompanying this statement[33] is a wheel in the form shown in Fig. 8, the quadrant a green, with thirteen figures of the cane in it; b red, with thirteen figures of the flint in it; c yellow with thirteen figures of the house in it, and d blue, with thirteen figures of ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas

... its immense nebulae, were lost in the rays of the rising sun. I had a complete observation of the progress and the close of the eclipse. I determined the distance of the horns, or the differences of altitude and azimuth, by the passage over the threads of the quadrant. The eclipse terminated at 2 hours 14 minutes 23.4 seconds ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... clothes, moreover, do not grow upon their backs, although they look very much as if they did. They come over here in large numbers from other countries, chiefly from France; and in London abound in Leicester-square, and are constantly to be met with under the Quadrant in Regent-street, where they grin, gabble, chatter, and sometimes dance, to the no small ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... then to be met in the Quadrant from eleven to one in the morning, and three till five in the afternoon. I would have one before luncheon, get another after luncheon, dine, and have a third women. I would at other times go under the Opera colonade, where they used to assemble in the summer evenings ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... obtainable, at a less expenditure of human patience and labor; and so the old tools are cast aside. One of them belonged to Halley, and was put up by him a hundred and thirty years ago; another is an old brazen quadrant, with which many valuable observations were made in by-gone times; and another, an old iron quadrant, still fixed in the stone pier to which it was first attached. Some of the huge telescopes that once found place in this ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... suppose that another period of about seven days has elapsed, the moon in the meantime reaching its full phase. We refer for guidance to Lunar Chart No. 3. The peculiarity of the northeastern quadrant which immediately strikes the eye is the prevalence of the broad plains called Maria, or "seas." The northern and central parts are occupied by the Mare Imbrium, the "Sea of Showers" or of "Rains," with its ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... sheet of note-paper, and, with a camel-hair brush, the precipitate is gently brought into the glass. Most precipitates come away easily, and the transfer can be made without apparent loss. The watch-glass is covered by the funnel, and the filter-paper (folded into a quadrant) held by the tweezers and set fire to with the flame of a Bunsen burner. It is allowed to burn over the crucible, into which the black bulky ash is allowed to drop, and two or three drops of nitric acid are then added. The ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... humours which circulate throughout the human system. No wonder that phlebotomy prevailed so long as the reign of the moon endured. "This lunar planet," says La Martiniere, "is damp of itself, but, by the radiation of the sun, is of various temperaments, as follows: in its first quadrant it is warm and damp, at which time it is good to let the blood of sanguine persons; in its second it is warm and dry, at which time it is good to bleed the choleric; in its third quadrant it is cold and moist, and phlegmatic ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... memories with so many that were joyous. Of the fisher-wife, for instance, who had cut her throat at Canty Bay; and of how I ran with the other children to the top of the Quadrant, and beheld a posse of silent people escorting a cart, and on the cart, bound in a chair, her throat bandaged, and the bandage all bloody - horror! - the fisher-wife herself, who continued thenceforth to hag-ride ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... East quadrant of the before mentioned Cloyster, was a fair Library built, at the costs of Walter Shiryngton, Chancelour of the Duchy of Lancaster in King Henry the 6th's time: But in the year MDXLIX. 10. Apr. both Chapell, Cloyster, and Monuments, excepting onely that side where the ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... time the cabriolet was dashing down Regent-street, twisting through the Quadrant, whirling along Pall Mall, until it finally entered Cleveland-row, and stopped before a newly painted, newly pointed, and exceedingly compact mansion, the long brass knocker of whose dark green door sounded beneath the practised touch of his lordship's tiger. Even the tawny Holstein horse, with ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli



Words linked to "Quadrant" :   country, measuring device, area, line, measuring instrument, measuring system



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org