different between sextant vs sextans

English

Etymology

From Latin sext?ns.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?kst?nt/

Noun

sextant (plural sextants)

1. (nautical) A navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude.
   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IV

     For several days things went along in about the same course. I took our position every morning with my crude sextant; but the results were always most unsatisfactory. They always showed a considerable westing when I knew that we had been sailing due north. I blamed my crude instrument, and kept on.

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

See also

• octant
• quadrant
• Wikipedia article on Sextant

Anagrams

• exstant

Czech

Noun

sextant m

1. sextant

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?k.st??/

Noun

sextant f (plural sextants)

1. sextant

Further reading

• “sextant” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Romanian

Etymology

From French sextant.

Noun

sextant m (plural sextan?i)

1. sextant

Declension

English

Etymology

From Latin sext?ns, from sex (“six”).

Noun

sextans

1. (historical, Roman antiquity) A Roman coin worth one sixth of an as.

Latin

Etymology

From sex (“six”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?sek.stans/, [?s??ks?t?ä??s?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?sek.stans/, [?s?kst??ns]

Noun

sext?ns m (genitive sextantis); third declension

1. a sixth part of an as, (in particular —)
   1. (a coin)
   2. (a weight)
   3. the sixth part of a juger (a measure of land)
   4. the sixth part of a sextarius (a measure of liquid)
   5. (a measure of length)
2. (mathematics) the sixth part of the number six (as of the numerus perfectus, in other words) unity, one
3. (Later Latin) a sextant (nautical instrument)

Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem).

Related terms

• sext?n?
• sext?rius

Descendants

• Russian: ??????? (sekstan), ???????? (sekstant)

See also

• oct?ns
• quadr?ns

References

• sextans in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• sextans in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• sextans in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• sextans in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• sextans in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin