Word Finder - abacus

definition

A table or tray scattered with sand which was used for calculating or drawing.

definition

A device used for performing arithmetical calculations; a table on which loose counters are placed, or (more commonly) an instrument with beads sliding on rods, or counters in grooves, with one row of beads or counters representing units, the next tens, etc.

example

I’ve heard merchants still use an abacus for adding things up in China.

definition

The uppermost portion of the capital of a column immediately under the architrave, in some cases a flat oblong or square slab, in others more decorated.

definition

A board, tray, or table, divided into perforated compartments for holding bottles, cups, or the like; a kind of buffet, cupboard, or sideboard.

Can you find out how to use an abacus?

One of the oldest manipulatives you're probably familiar with is the abacus, the ancient counting device in which beads strung on wires are used to represent single digits and groups of numbers.

They didn't have calculators in Victorian schools, but they did have the abacus!

In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dolokhov in a traveling cloak and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles of paper money.

The name of " abacus " is also given, in logic, to an instrument, often called the " logical machine," analogous to the mathematical abacus.

In the abacus the combinations are inscribed each on a single slip of wood or similar substance, which is moved by a key; incompatible combinations can thus be mechanically removed at will, in accordance with any given series of premises.

In 2002 Fossil launched the ABACUS line, with technological products like Person Digital Assistants (PDAs) that are worn on the wrist like watches.

Childrens abacus £ 17.99 US$35.08 E27.88 Wooden abacus with colorful counting beads.

The world's smallest abacus now uses individual molecules (13 November 1996 ).

To assist his lectures on astronomy he constructed elaborate globes of the terrestrial and celestial spheres, on which the course of the planets was marked; for facilitating arithmetical and perhaps geometrical processes he constructed an abacus with twenty-seven divisions and a thousand counters of horn.

Abacus chosen for Nottinghamshire Portal October 2003 The Nottinghamshire Partnership has selected abacus chosen for Nottinghamshire Portal October 2003 The Nottinghamshire Partnership has selected Abacus e-Media to supply and develop the County's web portal.

A notable omission in this analysis is the Abacus system widely used in the Asia Pacific region.

In the preface to the appendix containing the local arithmetic he states that, while devoting all his leisure to the invention of these abbreviations of calculation, and to examining by what methods the toil of calculation might be removed, in addition to the logarithms, rabdologia and promptuary, he had hit upon a certain tabular arithmetic, whereby the more troublesome operations of common arithmetic are performed on an abacus or chess-board, and which may be regarded as an amusement A facsimile of this document is given by Mark Napier in his Memoirs of John Napier (1834), p. 248.

The same historian tells us that Gerbert borrowed from the Arabs (Saraceni) the abacus with ciphers (see Numerals).

Though convenient for exhibiting the composition of any particular number, it was inconvenient for purposes of calculation; and in fact calculation was entirely (or almost entirely) performed by means of the abacus.

I have never known so exactly This abacus of days. This withdrawal.

He wrote also treatises on the astrolabe (a copy of this is in the British Museum), on the abacus (three copies exist in the Vatican library, the library of Leiden University and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris), translations of the Kharismian Tables and an Arabic Introduction to Astronomy.

Fossil also offers a miniature PDA worn on the wrist, called Abacus Wrist PDA, the first company to do so.