chronometer

plural chronometers · alternative nonstandard chronometre

1. A device for measuring time, particularly a precision mechanism for measuring time of day.

   A wristwatch costs $20; a chronometer costs $20,000.

   3 more examples

   The balances of all moveable time-keepers, the chronometer excepted, are prevented from vibrating beyond the proper arc by what is called bankings. The inferior escapements are very easily banked; a pin fixed in the balance, coming in contact with one or two studs, is sufficient for that purpose. […]

   1825, “Transactions of the Society Instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce”, in Royal Society of Arts, Great Britain

   The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers, barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants, and specimens of every kind of instrument used in the working of a ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the prosecuting of a ship's discoveries.

   1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, “chapter 4”, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC

   The sailors sail by chronometers that do not lose two or three seconds in a year, ever since [Isaac] Newton explained to Parliament that the way to improve navigation was to get good watches, and to offer public premiums for a better time-keeper than any then in use.

   1878 March 30, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fortune of the Republic. Lecture Delivered at the Old South Church, March 30, 1878, Boston, Mass.: Houghton, Osgood and Company […], published 1878, →OCLC, page 1

   Synonyms: timepiece, time standard