milligrade

English

Etymology

From milli- +‎ grade.

Adjective

milligrade (not comparable)

1. (of a scale) Based on a division into 1000 degrees.
   • 1875, "Introduction", in, Louis Siebold, editor, Year-book of Pharmacy [1875], British Pharmaceutical Conference, page 14:

     A new and ingenious thermometric scale has been constructed by Mr. John Williams, by dividing the interval between the freezing and boiling points of mercury into 1000 degrees. The freezing point of water would thus be 100°, and its boiling point 350°, and five milligrade degrees would be equal to two degrees C.

   • 1876 May 4, “The Progress of the Loan Collection”, in Nature, doi:10.1038/014001a0, page 2:

     In the Heat department we cannot allow ourselves to linger at the fine collection of thermometric and other instruments. Among them is a milligrade thermometer, in which the interval between the freezing and boiling points of water is divided into one thousand degrees; it obviates the use of fractions.

   • 1900, C. Lewis Diehl, “Report on the Progress of Pharmacy. From July 1, 1899, to June 30, 1900”, in Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association at the Forty-eighth Annual Meeting, page 406:

     A. Betts has devised a milligrade thermometer on a scale in which the freezing point of mercury is the zero and its boiling point is 1000.

See also

• centigrade