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one engaged in, or trained to habits of, close and exact observation; as, an astronomical observer. The observed of all observers. Shak. Careful observers may foretell the hour, By sure prognostic, when to dread a shower. Swift.

The office or work of an observer.

One who misobserves; one who fails to observe properly.

heavenly bodies, due to the combined effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer; called annual aberration, when the observer's motion is that of the earth in its orbit, and dairy or diurnal aberration, when of the earth on its axis; amounting when greatest, in the former case, to 20.4'', and in the l…

ctions; penetrating; clever; shrewd; -- opposed to Ant: dull or Ant: stupid; as, an acute observer; acute remarks, or reasoning.

An auscultatory process, which consists in noting the tone of the observer's own voice, while he speaks, holding his head close to the patient's chest. Dunglison.

heavenly bodies, but now superseded by the quadrant and sextant; -- so called because the observer turned his back to the body observed.

urate; careful; precise; also, attentive; undeviating; strict; not wandering; as, a close observer.

t right, or like the hands of a watch when the apex of the spire is toward the eye of the observer.

the seen or visible horizon below the true or natural horizon; the angle at the eye of an observer between a horizontal line and a tangent drawn from the eye to the surface of the ocean. -- Dip of the needle, or Magnetic dip, the angle formed, in a vertical plane, by a freely suspended magnetic needle, or the line of…

istinguishes, perceives, or judges; as, a discerner of truth, of right and wrong. A great observer and discerner of men's natures. Clarendon.

nith distance (Astron.), the arc on the heavens from a heavenly body to the zenith of the observer. It is the complement of the altitude. -- To keep one's distance, to stand aloof; to refrain from familiarity. If a man makes keep my distance, the comfort is he keeps his at the same time. Swift.

One who discerns accurately the difference of things; a nice or judicious observer. Dryden.

ural means. There shall not be found among you any one that . . . useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter. Deut. xviii. 10.

g through the earth's shadow; a solar eclipse, by the moon coming between the sun and the observer. A satellite is eclipsed by entering the shadow of its primary. The obscuration of a planet or star by the moon or a planet, though of the nature of an eclipse, is called an occultation. The eclipse of a small portion of…

the difference between an observed result and the true qualities or peculiarities in the observer; particularly the difference, in an average of a large number of observation, between the instant when an observer notes a phenomenon, as the transit of a star, and the assumed instant of its actual occurrence; or, relati…

In an exquisite manner or degree; as, lace exquisitely wrought. To a sensitive observer there was something exquisitely painful in it. Hawthorne.

the operations of geodesy; engaged in geodesy; geodesic; as, geodetic surveying; geodetic observers. Geodetic line or curve, the shortest line that can be drawn between two points on the elipsoidal surface of the earth; a curve drawn on any given surface so that the osculating plane of the curve at every point shall co…

ment. M. Arnold. The gradualness of growth is a characteristic which strikes the simplest observer. H. Drummond.

An instrument for making signals to an observer at a distance, by means of the sun's rays thrown from a mirror.