Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun plural A set of graduated rods used to perform multiplication quickly.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- A set of rods, made of bone or other material, each divided into nine spaces, and containing the numbers of a column of the multiplication table; -- a contrivance of Baron Napier, the inventor of logarithms, for facilitating the operations of multiplication and division.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun arithmetic A set of numbered rods used for multiplication and division (see the Wikipedia article for a fuller explanation).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a set of graduated rods formerly used to do multiplication and division by a method invented by John Napier
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[After John Napier.]
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hernesheir commented on the word Napier's bones
Also called Napier's rods
October 12, 2014