Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An optical instrument for measuring crystal angles, as between crystal faces.
  • noun A radio receiver and directional antenna used as a system to determine the angular direction of incoming radio signals.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An instrument for measuring solid angles, or the inclination of planes, particularly the angles formed by the faces of crystals.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An instrument for measuring angles, especially the angles of crystals, or the inclination of planes.
  • noun a goniometer having two movable arms (ab, cd), between which (at ab) the faces of the crystals are placed. These arms turn about a fixed point, which is the center of the graduated circle or semicircle upon which the angle is read off.
  • noun an instrument for measuring the angles of crystals by determining through what angular space the crystal must be turned so that two rays reflected from two surfaces successively shall have the same direction; -- called also Wollaston's goniometer, from the inventor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A device used to measure the angles of crystals.
  • noun A radio direction finder.
  • noun medicine An arthrometer (device for measuring the arc or range of mobility of a joint).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun direction finder that determines the angular direction of incoming radio signals

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek gōniā, angle; see genu- in Indo-European roots + –meter.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

gonio- + -meter

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Examples

  • MN This is a goniometer or instrument for measuring angles; it was a precision instrument, lightweight and easy to transport, and was used at sea to measure distances by angle and the height of heavenly bodies, which permitted the observer to determine his position.

    Sailing on and on 2008

  • MN This is a goniometer or instrument for measuring angles; it was a precision instrument, lightweight and easy to transport, and was used at sea to measure distances by angle and the height of heavenly bodies, which permitted the observer to determine his position.

    Sailing on and on 2008

  • He'd take sightings with compass, goniometer, and plumb bob.

    Operation Luna Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1999

  • As a measure of the high precision achieved by Siegbahn's spectrographs (which are held at a constant temperature and read, in tenths of seconds, by means of two microscopes mounted diametrically opposite one another on a precision goniometer) may be mentioned the fact that his energy-level values, arrived at thirty years ago, still serve for many purposes.

    Manne Siegbahn - Biography 1965

  • The refractive power of these yellow stones is remarkable, and the goniometer will probably reveal a higher index than is accorded to all the varieties of beryl by the learned Abbé Haüy.

    Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873 Various

  • One day, during an interlude of free flight, he strode into the control-room and glanced at the course-plotting goniometer, then started into the "tank."

    Galactic Patrol Smith, E. E. 1950

  • An important property of calcite is the great ease with which it may be cleaved in three directions; the three perfect cleavages are parallel to the faces of the primitive rhombohedron, and the angle between them was determined by W.H. Wollaston in 1812, with the aid of his newly invented reflective goniometer, to be 74° 55 '.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" Various

  • Under his right and left hands were the double-series potentiometers actuating the variable-speed drives of the flight-angle directors in the hour and declination ranges; before his eyes was the finely marked micrometer screen upon which the guiding goniometer threw its needle-point of light; powerful optical systems of prisms and lenses revealed to his sight the director-angles, down to fractional seconds of arc.

    Spacehounds of IPC 1927

  • Mineralogy, the goniometer, the constancy of angles and the primary laws of derivation by Romé de Lisle, and next the discovery of types and the mathematical deduction of secondary forms by Haüy.

    The Ancient Regime Hippolyte Taine 1860

  • There may be a sort of horseback theory of geology; but mineralogy, and the natural sciences generally, must be investigated on foot, hammer or goniometer in hand.

    Memoirs of 30 Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers Schoolcraft, H R 1851

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