gnomon

«gnomon» in Mova's school dictionary: The part of a sundial that sticks up and casts the shadow… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a gnomon, gnomons)

meaning for a pupil

1) The part of a sundial that sticks up and casts the shadow that shows the time. tree →

2) (maths) In geometry, the L-shaped piece left when a smaller shape is cut out of the corner of a larger similar shape, such as a square. tree →

sense in the lessons

Used in science and history lessons on telling time by the Sun, and in maths puzzles about shapes and patterns. It tells the reader which part throws the shadow. Phrases: the gnomon of a sundial, the shadow of the gnomon.

examples

• The gnomon casts a shadow on the sundial. tree →
• We made a sundial with a pencil as the gnomon. tree →
• At noon the shadow of the gnomon is shortest. tree →
• The gnomon must point north in the UK. tree →
• In Australia the gnomon of a sundial points south. tree →
• In maths, a gnomon is the L-shape left when you take a small square out of a big one. tree →

note

Silent g: say NO-mon. Plural gnomons. Do not confuse with gnome (a little garden figure). The gnomon is tilted at the same angle as your latitude so the sundial works all year.

In the corpora

• A sundial tells the time by the shadow of a stick called a gnomon, which moves round as the Earth turns.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «gnomon» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.