Wordnik Word of the Day for June 28, 2013 gnomon On a sun-dial, the triangular projecting piece which by its shadow shows the hour of the day; also, any index to a sun-dial or to a meridian-mark, especially a very large one. The early gnomons used for astronomical purposes were vertical pillars or obelisks. The index of the hour-circle of a globe. A piece of a parallelogram left after a similar parallelogram has been removed from a corner of it. Thus, in the figure, EFGBCD is a gnomon. An odd number; one of the terms of an arithmetical series by which polygonal numbers are found. Also called gnomonic number. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 14:39:45 +0000
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