horologe

plural horologes

1. archaichistoricalSynonym of sundial or clock, a device or mechanism used to tell the hour of the day.

   He'll watch the horologe a double set, If drink rock not his cradle.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]

   2 more examples

   A SOUL is not like wind (spiritus, or breath) contained within a capsule; the ALMIGHTY MAKER is not like a Clockmaker that once, in old immemorial ages, having made his Horologe of a Universe, sits ever since and sees it go! Not at all. Hence comes Atheism; come, as we say, many other isms […]

   1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. II, Gospel of Mammonism”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker)

   The custodian of the horologe at Ely (1291) was paid 3s. annually for looking after something, which cannot have been a trifling object, for many labourers would gladly have done a month's hard work for that sum.

   2007, John North, God's Clockmaker, page 167

   Synonyms: sundial or clock