Number & MeasureGreek → English
Goniometry
/ˌɡoʊniˈɒmɪtri/noun
The measurement of angles, and the instruments and techniques used to do it.
The Greek roots
γωνία
gōnía
angle, corner
μέτρον
métron
measure
Literally: “angle measurement”
The story of the word
γωνία was the ordinary Greek word for a corner, the place where two walls meet. The instrument came first: Arnould Carangeot built a contact goniometer in 1780 to measure the angles between crystal faces, and the discipline grew around it. Physiotherapists now clip one to a knee to record how far it bends.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
goniometerpolygontrigonometrydiagonal
In a sentence
The clinic records shoulder range by goniometry at every visit.
Crystal goniometry told mineralogists what X-rays would later confirm.