Definitions

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

  • noun A detecting device that receives seismic impulses.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In technical usage, the tendency is to restrict the application of the term “seismometer” to instruments of such high character that from the records or indications they give the actual motion of the ground may be inferred or worked out. Many instruments are sensitive to the vibrations of the ground, but their indications or records are very far from being exact measures of the disturbing influences. The Bosch-Omori and the Marvin seismographs while not absolutely perfect are scismometers, but, at the same time, they are seismographs, simply because they produce written records. The use of the term “seismo-scope” is restricted to instruments that simply indicate the existence of seismic influences, without either measuring or recoding them.
  • noun An instrument by the aid of which the data are obtained for the scientific study of earthquake phenomena.

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

  • noun (Physics) An instrument for measuring the direction, duration, and force of earthquakes and like concussions.

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

  • noun geology A device used by seismologists to detect and measure seismic waves and therefore locate earthquakes etc; a seismograph

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