sextant
/ˈsɛk.stənt/
sextant noun: a navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude.
Noun
sextant (plural sextants)
- A navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude.
- […] I can do more with a Quadrant, Sextant or Octant, of 1 foot Radius, furniſhed with Teleſcopical Sights and Screws, then ^([sic]) can poſſibly be done with any other Inſtrument, furniſhed only with Common Sights, though 10, 20, 30, nay threeſcore foot Radius; […]1674, Robert Hooke, Animadversions on the Firſt Part of the Machina Coelestis of the […] Aſtronomer Johannes Hevelius […] , page 43
- I took our position every morning with my crude sextant; but the results were always most unsatisfactory.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor...
- One sixth of a circle or disc; a sector with an angle of 60°.
- One of six groups of adjacent teeth, excluding the wisdom teeth.
- A radial cell division of segments in three series, a sixth part of the original.
Proper noun capitalized: Sextant
Sextant
- The constellation Sextans.
sextant meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
sextant in Tamil
- அறுபாகைமானி, கோண அளவி, சட்டிமம், காணமாணி, மாலுமி கோணமானி
sextant in Bengali
- সেক্সট্যান্ট
sextant in Malayalam
- navigational instrument
- ദൂരകോണമാപിനി dūrakōṇamāpini
sextant in Kannada
- ಕೋನಳೆಕ
More languagesFewer languages
- sextant in Arabic
- سُدْس suds, سُدُس sudus
- sextant in Persian
- سدس sods
- sextant in Vietnamese
- kính lục phân
Forms of sextant
| plural | sextants |
|---|
Origin of sextant
From Latin sextāns.
Words formed from sextant
Questions about sextant
- What does sextant mean?
- Sextant means a navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude.
- What is sextant in Tamil?
- Sextant in Tamil is அறுபாகைமானி, கோண அளவி, சட்டிமம். See Sextant meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is sextant?
- Sextant can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce sextant?
- Sextant is pronounced /ˈsɛk.stənt/.
- What is the plural of sextant?
- The plural of sextant is sextants.
Words near sextant in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sextant (page history and authors); Sextant (page history and authors); sextant (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sextant (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sextant (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-sextant.wav.
Cite this entry: “sextant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sextant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.