astrolabe
part of speech
noun (an astrolabe, astrolabes)
meaning for a pupil
1) An old instrument made of brass discs and a pointer, used to measure how high the Sun or a star is above the horizon. tree →
2) With it, sailors and astronomers could work out the time and where they were on Earth. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history and science lessons it appears in stories of early astronomers and Islamic and medieval scholars, and in lessons on how people found their way before GPS. It tells the reader the scene is long ago and about stars, time or navigation. Phrases: «a brass astrolabe», «use an astrolabe».
examples
- The museum had a shiny brass astrolabe in a glass case. tree →
- Sailors once used an astrolabe to find how far north they were. tree →
- The astronomer held up the astrolabe to the night sky. tree →
- Our class made a paper astrolabe in science. tree →
- An astrolabe measures the height of a star above the horizon. tree →
- Scholars in Baghdad improved the astrolabe long ago. tree →
- She turned the ring of the astrolabe to line it up with the Sun. tree →
note
Countable noun: an astrolabe, two astrolabes. Stress on the first syllable: AS-tro-labe. Not a telescope: it does not make things look bigger, it measures angles. Later sailors used the sextant instead.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «astrolabe» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.