sextant

See also: Sextant

English

A nautical sextant

Etymology

From Latin sextāns.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɛk.stənt/
• Rhymes: -ɛkstənt

Noun

sextant (plural sextants)

1. (nautical) A navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude.
   • 1674, Robert Hooke, Animadversions on the Firſt Part of the Machina Coelestis of the […] Aſtronomer Johannes Hevelius […] ‎^[1], page 43:

     […] I can do more with a Quadrant, Sextant or Octant, of 1 foot Radius, furniſhed with Teleſcopical Sights and Screws, then ^[sic] can poſſibly be done with any other Inſtrument, furniſhed only with Common Sights, though 10, 20, 30, nay threeſcore foot Radius; […]

   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, part 1, New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     I took our position every morning with my crude sextant; but the results were always most unsatisfactory.

   • 1981, Saul J. Adelman, Benjamin Adelman, Bound for the Stars, →ISBN, page 227:

     Moskowitz and Devereux have designed a hyperaccurate sextant for interstellar navigation based upon the design of the sextant used by the Apollo astronauts.

2. (geometry) One sixth of a circle or disc; a sector with an angle of 60°.
3. (dentistry) One of six groups of adjacent teeth, excluding the wisdom teeth. The front sextants go from canine to canine, and there are sextants on the right and left of these. See w:Periodontal examination.

Translations

navigational instrument

• Arabic: سُدْس m (suds), سُدُس (sudus)
• Azerbaijani: sekstant
• Bulgarian: секстант m (sekstant)
• Catalan: sextant m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 六分儀／六分仪 (zh) (liùfēnyí)

• Czech: sextant m
• Danish: sekstant (da) c
• Esperanto: sekstanto
• Finnish: sekstantti (fi)
• French: sextant (fr) m
• Galician: sextante m
• German: Sextant (de) m
• Greek: εξάντας (el) m (exántas)
• Japanese: 六分儀 (ja) (ろくぶんぎ, rokubungi)
• Kazakh: секстант (sekstant)
• Korean: 육분의(六分儀) (yukbunui)
• Malayalam: ദൂരകോണമാപിനി (dūrakōṇamāpini)
• Manx: uillin-towsheyder m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: sekstant m

  Nynorsk: sekstant m

• Ottoman Turkish: آینه (ayna)
• Persian: سدس (fa) (sods)
• Portuguese: sextante (pt) m
• Romanian: sextant (ro) n
• Russian: секста́нт (ru) m (sekstánt), секста́н (ru) m (sekstán)
• Spanish: sextante (es) m
• Swedish: sextant (sv) c
• Vietnamese: kính lục phân (鏡六分)
• Welsh: onglyr m, onglyron m pl

one sixth of a circle

• Catalan: sextant m
• Finnish: sekstantti (fi)
• Galician: sextante m
• Portuguese: sextante (pt) m
• Spanish: please add this translation if you can

See also

• octant
• quadrant
• Wikipedia article on Sextant

Anagrams

• exstant

Czech

Noun

sextant m inan

1. sextant

Declension

Declension of sextant (hard masculine inanimate)

	singular	plural
nominative	sextant	sextanty
genitive	sextantu	sextantů
dative	sextantu	sextantům
accusative	sextant	sextanty
vocative	sextante	sextanty
locative	sextantu	sextantech
instrumental	sextantem	sextanty

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɛk.stɑ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

sextant f (plural sextants)

1. sextant

Further reading

• “sextant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French sextant.

Noun

sextant m (plural sextanți)

1. sextant

Declension

Declension of sextant

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) sextant	sextantul	(niște) sextanți	sextanții
genitive/dative	(unui) sextant	sextantului	(unor) sextanți	sextanților
vocative	sextantule		sextanților

Swedish

Noun

sextant c

1. (nautical) a sextant

Declension

Declension of sextant
	Singular		Plural
	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	sextant	sextanten	sextanter	sextanterna
Genitive	sextants	sextantens	sextanters	sextanternas

References

• sextant in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• sextant in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• sextant in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)