Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An instrument for automatically detecting and recording the intensity, direction, and duration of a movement of the ground, especially of an earthquake.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as seismometer (which see).
  • noun See seismometer. A great variety of apparatus has been devised for recording earthquake phenomena, of which that perfected by Omori is used in Japan, that of Milne is established at about fifty British and international stations, and that known as the Bosch-Omori, improved by Marvin, is used at about thirty American and German stations. All these are adaptations of the horizontal pendulum at first used by Zollner in 1860 to investigate changes in terrestrial gravity, and they record the horizontal movements of the ground at great distances from the origin of the earthquake. A very different apparatus for this purpose is the inverted vertical pendulum devised by Wiechert (see seismometer) and greatly improved by Marvin at Washington. No apparatus for recording vertical movements of the ground and none for recording the largest movements near the epicenter have as yet been successful.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Physics) An apparatus for registering the shocks and undulatory motions of earthquakes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An instrument that automatically detects and records the intensity, direction and duration of earthquakes and similar events.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a measuring instrument for detecting and measuring the intensity and direction and duration of movements of the ground (as an earthquake)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From seismo- + -graph.

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Examples

  • The point we are making here is that if we regard the equity markets as a long-term seismograph of the economy, then so far, despite all the storm and stress, the markets - and therefore the economy - remain within the general pattern of the 2000-2002 market at the 2001 recession.

    ROFASix 2008

  • The point we are making here is that if we regard the equity markets as a long-term seismograph of the economy, then so far, despite all the storm and stress, the markets - and therefore the economy - remain within the general pattern of the 2000-2002 market at the 2001 recession.

    WordPress.com News 2008

  • The point we are making here is that if we regard the equity markets as a long-term seismograph of the economy, then so far, despite all the storm and stress, the markets - and therefore the economy - remain within the general pattern of the 2000-2002 market at the 2001 recession.

    Heavy-Handed Politics 2008

  • The point we are making here is that if we regard the equity markets as a long-term seismograph of the economy, then so far, despite all the storm and stress, the markets - and therefore the economy - remain within the general pattern of the 2000-2002 market at the 2001 recession.

    WordPress.com News 2008

  • Gail Wynand, the man they called the seismograph of public opinion. "

    The Fountainhead Rand, Ayn 1943

  • "There is an instrument called the seismograph, which records the vibratory movements of the earth, and also locates the distances at which the shocks are from the observer, but there is nothing to indicate what the extent and probable dangers are."

    The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island Roger Thompson Finlay

  • The third instrument is the seismograph, which is so arranged that it will accurately record the number, succession, direction, amplitude and period of successive oscillations.

    The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire Charles Morris 1877

  • But is Britain really, as Garton Ash writes, a "seismograph" or "thermometer" of European “ American relations?

    Prudential 2009

  • Of course, the five groups are unpopular with different segments of the population, which is precisely why together they provide a useful seismograph of tolerance in America.

    American Grace Robert D. Putnam 2010

  • And this seismograph traces an unambiguous picture, for on every single one of the fifteen questions tolerance increases significantly over these thirty-six years.51 Figure 13.9 summarizes the trends for each of the five groups averaging responses to speeches, teaching, and books in each case.

    American Grace Robert D. Putnam 2010

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