Word.ws English Dictionary

quintants

quintants is the plural of quintant.

Meaning of quintant

Noun

quintant (plural quintants)

  1. (historical) An instrument used for measuring angular distance, capable of measuring angles of up to 72 or 144 degrees.
    • In former days octants, quintants and quadrants were in general use. The only basic difference between these instruments and the sextant is in the length of the arc.1944, Bart J[an] Bok, Frances W[oodworth] Wright, Basic Marine Navigation, Boston, M.A.; […]: Houghton Mifflin Company, page 242
  2. (rare) A fifth of a circle.
    • Sectors are particularly denominated from the proportional part of the circle they contain; thus, a quadrant contains a 4th part of the circle; a quintant, the 5th part; a sextant, the 6th part; an octant, the 8th part; &c.1819, Robert Patterson, A Treatise of Practical Arithmetic: Intended for the Use of Schools; In Two Parts, Pittsburgh, P.A.: […] R. Patterson and Lambdin, page 85

Questions about quintants

What is quintants the plural of?
Quintants is the plural of quintant.

Words near quintants in the dictionary

  1. Quintanars
  2. Quintanilla
  3. Quintanillas
  4. quintans
  5. quintant
  6. quintants
  7. quintar
  8. quintaries
  9. quintars
  10. quintary
  11. quintas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quintants (page history and authors); quintant (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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