Quadrant

How to spell quadrant

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce quadrant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does quadrant mean?

1. nounOne of four regions into which a plane or area is divided by two perpendicular lines.
2. nounA historic graduated instrument shaped like a quarter-circle, used to measure angles and altitudes.

Quadrant in a sentence

• The graph shows a single point plotted in the upper left quadrant.

• The museum displayed a brass quadrant once used to fix a ship's latitude.

• The surgeon noted tenderness in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen.

• Early navigators sighted the pole star through a wooden quadrant.

Where does quadrant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Quadrant comes from the Latin quadrantem, the accusative form of quadrans, which literally meant 'a fourth part' or 'a quarter'. That noun was built on the number quattuor, meaning 'four', the same root that gives us 'quart', 'quartet', and 'square'. In Roman times a quadrans was even the name of a small coin worth a quarter of an as. English took the word in the late 1300s, first for an instrument shaped like a quarter-circle that astronomers and sailors used to measure the altitude of stars and the sun. From there the meaning broadened to any quarter of a circle or any of four regions of a divided area. The opening 'quadr-' element keeps that idea of four firmly in view, which is the simplest cue for the spelling.

How the word is built

• quadr- (four)
• -ant (noun suffix, from quadrans 'a quarter')