thermometer
[ther-mom-i-ter]
- an instrument for measuring temperature, often a sealed glass tube that contains a column of liquid, as mercury, that expands and contracts, or rises and falls, with temperature changes, the temperature being read where the top of the column coincides with a calibrated scale marked on the tube or its frame.
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Origin of thermometer
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for thermometer
Contemporary Examples
Turn the heat down to 325°F and continue cooking until internal temperature reads 140°F on a thermometer.
It's almost impossible to read the thermometer of public opinion when it comes to LaBeouf's recent melt down/revelation.
How Likable Is Alec Baldwin After His ‘New York Magazine’ Confessional?Amy Zimmerman
February 26, 2014
Every time the thermometer drops, another anti-science politician mocks climate change as a fallacy.
Every government in Delhi keeps a thermometer in its holster and calibrates its decibel levels according to ground temperature.
Historical Examples
Barometer 28.48; thermometer 68 degrees at half-past five o'clock.
Explorations in AustraliaJohn Forrest
At sunset the thermometer was at 50°, and at midnight at 30°.
The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and CaliforniaBrevet Col. J.C. Fremont
At ten the thermometer stood at 102, and at day-break at 90.
On some cookers, a thermometer is also attached to the cover.
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
By three o'clock the thermometer showed 116-1/2 in the shade, and I believed it.
A Woman TenderfootGrace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
thermometer
- an instrument used to measure temperature, esp one in which a thin column of liquid, such as mercury, expands and contracts within a graduated sealed tubeSee also clinical thermometer, gas thermometer, resistance thermometer, thermocouple, pyrometer
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for thermometer
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
thermometer
(thər-mŏm′ĭ-tər)- An instrument for measuring temperature.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
thermometer
[thər-mŏm′ĭ-tər]
- An instrument used to measure temperature. There are many types of thermometers; the most common consist of a closed, graduated glass tube in which a liquid expands or contracts as the temperature increases or decreases. Other types of thermometers work by detecting changes in the volume or pressure of an enclosed gas or by registering thermoelectric changes in a conductor (such as a thermistor or thermocouple).
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The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.