cross-staff

[kraws-staf, -stahf, kros-]

cross-staff

[kraws-staf, -stahf, kros-]
noun, plural cross-staffs, cross-staves. Astronomy.
an instrument for measuring the angle of elevation of heavenly bodies, consisting of a calibrated staff with another shorter staff perpendicular to and sliding on it.


Origin:
1400–50, for an earlier sense; late Middle English
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Cross-staff is always a great word to know.
So is constellation. Does it mean:
the obscuring of the light of the moon by the intervention of the earth between it and the sun, a lunar eclipse, or the obscuring of the light of the sun by the intervention of the moon between it and a point on the earth, a solar eclipse
any of various groups of stars to which definite names have been given and the section of the heavens occupied by such a group, such as Ursa Major, Andromeda
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