Nilometer

Example Sentences

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Lanchester concludes that “words longer mean what they once did. It is not a process intended to deceive, but, like the Nilometer, it confines knowledge to a priesthood—the priesthood of people who can speak money.”

From Forbes • Aug. 7, 2014

The steamer was so helplessly deserted by the water, that she would have served for a Nilometer upon which to mark the level, like the rock at Assouan.

From Ismailia by Baker, Samuel White, Sir

Nilometer, nī-lom′e-tėr, n. a gauge for measuring the height of water in the river Nile: any river-gauge—also Nī′loscope.—adj.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various

Roda Island contains a mosque built by Kait Bey, and at its southern extremity is the Nilometer, by which the Cairenes have for over a thousand years measured the rise of the river.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" by Various

The Nilometer is in a square well 16 feet in diameter, having in the centre a graduated octagonal column with Cufic inscriptions, and is 17 cubits in height, the cubit being 21-1/3 inches.

From The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela by Benjamin of Tudela