sextant

See also: Sextant

English

A nautical sextant

Etymology

From Latin sextāns, a bronze coin worth one-sixth of an as.

Noun

sextant (plural sextants)

1. (nautical) A navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude.
   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IV

     For several days things went along in about the same course. I took our position every morning with my crude sextant; but the results were always most unsatisfactory. They always showed a considerable westing when I knew that we had been sailing due north. I blamed my crude instrument, and kept on.

2. (geometry) One sixth of a circle or disc; a sector with an angle of 60°.

Translations

navigational instrument

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 六分儀, 六分仪 (zh) (liùfēnyí)

• Czech: sextant m
• Danish: sekstant c
• Esperanto: sekstanto
• Finnish: sekstantti (fi)
• French: sextant (fr) m
• Galician: sextante (gl) m
• German: Sextant (de) m

• Greek: εξάντας (el) m (exántas)
• Japanese: 六分儀 (ろくぶんぎ, rokubungi)
• Manx: uillin-towsheyder m
• Portuguese: sextante (pt) m
• Romanian: sextant (ro) n
• Russian: секстант (ru) m (sekstánt), секстан (ru) m (sekstán)
• Spanish: sextante (es) m
• Swedish: sextant (sv) c

one sixth of a circle

• Galician: sextante (gl) m

• Portuguese: sextante (pt) m

See also

• octant
• quadrant
• Wikipedia article on Sextant

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Czech

Noun

sextant m

1. sextant

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɛk.stɑ̃/

Noun

sextant f (plural sextants)

1. sextant

External links

• “sextant” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).