Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act, process, or art of measuring.
- noun Measurement of geometric quantities.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act, art, or process of measuring; specifically, the act or art of determining length, area, volume, content, etc., by measurement and computation: as, the rules of mensuration; the mensuration of surfaces and solids.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act, process, or art, of measuring.
- noun That branch of applied geometry which gives rules for finding the length of lines, the areas of surfaces, or the volumes of solids, from certain simple data of lines and angles.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The branch of
mathematics that deals withmeasurement , especially the derivation and use ofalgebraic formulae to measure theareas ,volumes and different parameters ofgeometric figures.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the act or process of assigning numbers to phenomena according to a rule
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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'The very term mensuration sounds ENGINEER-LIKE,' I find him writing; and in truth what the engineer most properly deals with is that which can be measured, weighed, and numbered.
Records of a Family of Engineers Robert Louis Stevenson 1872
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But there is also a higher arithmetic, and a higher mensuration, which is exclusively theoretical; and a dialectical science, which is higher still and the truest and purest knowledge.
Philebus 2006
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SOCRATES: And when we compare the art of mensuration which is used in building with philosophical geometry, or the art of computation which is used in trading with exact calculation, shall we say of either of the pairs that it is one or two?
Philebus 2006
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And when we compare the art of mensuration which is used in building with philosophical geometry, or the art of computation which is used in trading with exact calculation, shall we say of either of the pairs that it is one or two?
PHILEBUS Plato 1972
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This kind of mensuration reminds one of the disputes between French critics as to whether the unity of time meant thirty hours, or twenty-four, or twelve, or the actual time that it took to act the play; or of the geometric method of the "Saturday papers" in the _Spectator_.
A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century 1886
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The subjects of instruction have all been retained in the Curriculum of the London School Board, except, perhaps, "mensuration" and "social economy."
Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 2 Thomas Henry Huxley 1860
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In those hundred and four hours a year -- hours which came after a tiring day's work -- his brain was fed upon "mensuration" and "the science of horticulture," the former on the chance that some day he might want to measure a wall for paper-hanging or do some other job of the sort, and the latter in case fate should have marked him out for a nursery-gardener, when it would be handy to know that germinating seeds begin by pushing down a root and pushing up a leaf or two.
Change in the Village George Sturt 1895
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All such attempts have either found no difference overall, or have foundered on criticisms of their methodology, mensuration, or validity.
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Biometrics and forest mensuration are concerned with sampling and measuring properties such as stem form and biomass, site index, stand wood yield, etc.
Forestry 2008
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But surely beauty is no idea belonging to mensuration; nor has it anything to do with calculation and geometry.
chained_bear commented on the word mensuration
"'I never could get ahead in Latin, but I really did shine at sums and what we called mensuration: I loved numbers even then...'"
—P. O'Brian, The Hundred Days, 158
March 25, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word mensuration
"the art of measuring lines, superficies, and solids." (citation in Historical Military Terms list description)
October 9, 2008