Backstaff

1828.sorabji.com > Webster's 1828 English Dictionary

Browse Webster's 1828 Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language is regarded by many as the finest English dictionary ever published. The dictionary is available in many forms. I made the content available here for my own purposes, out of personal admiration for this particular dictionary.

You can also look up words at dict.sorabji.com

See my other projects: weather, dict, payphones, mailboxes, receipts, found photos, court documents, what is my ip?, and more at sorabji.com.

BACK'STAFF, n. [back and staff, so called from its being used with the observer's back toward the sun.]
A quadrant; an instrument for taking the sun's altitude at sea; called also, from its inventor, Davis's quadrant.

backstaff appears in definitions for these words:

NEW: Google Full-Text Search of Webster's 1828