thermometer
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.
Origin of thermometer
1Other words from thermometer
- ther·mo·met·ric [thur-muh-me-trik], /ˌθɜr məˈmɛ trɪk/, ther·mo·met·ri·cal, adjective
- ther·mo·met·ri·cal·ly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use thermometer in a sentence
The height above the level of the sea was thermometrically determined at 2200 feet.
We have two climates, hygrometrically as well as thermometrically at opposite ends of the scale.
Adrift in the Arctic Ice Pack | Elisha Kent Kane
British Dictionary definitions for thermometer
/ (θəˈmɒmɪtə) /
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 tube: See also clinical thermometer, gas thermometer, resistance thermometer, thermocouple, pyrometer
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
Scientific definitions for 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).
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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