▪ I. measuring, vbl. n.
(ˈmɛʒ(j)ʊərɪŋ)
[f. measure v. + -ing1.]
1. The action of the vb. measure; the process of taking measurements; measurement, mensuration.
| 1340 Hampole Pr. Consc. 7692 Bot swa sutelle and wise may na man be, Þat þat mesuryng knawes swa wele als he. 1461 in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. v. 301 The wakman of the saide citie..shall have the mesuring of salte and corne. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. ii. i. 215. 1656 H. Phillips Purch. Patt. (1676) B viij, This measuring by the Pole..is very inconvenient. 1709 J. Ward Introd. Math. i. ii. (1734) 21 Division is by Euclid fitly termed the measuring of one Number by another. 1844 Stephens Bk. Farm II. 275 The measuring up of grain. 1893 Athenæum 23 Sept. 423/3 The yearly measurings and observations. |
† 2. Dimension.
Obs.| 1529 More Dyaloge ii. Wks. 188/1 Thei be not cyrcumscribed in place, for lack of bodily dymencion and measuring. 1597 A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 2/1 Shee hath a threefoulde measuringe, in length, bredthe, and debthe. |
† 3. Dancing of ‘measures’.
Obs.| 1599 Marston Sco. Villanie i. i, Hath been at feasts, and led the measuring At Court. |
4. attrib. esp. in the names of various instruments and vessels graduated for purposes of measurement, as
measuring-chain,
measuring-foot,
measuring-glass,
measuring-line,
measuring-pole,
measuring-reed,
measuring-rod (also
fig.),
measuring-rule,
measuring-staff,
measuring-tape,
† measuring-yard;
† measuring-money (see
quot.);
measuring-wheel, (
a)
= odometer; (
b)
= circumferentor 2 (Knight
Dict. Mech. 1875).
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. 1413/2 *Measuring-chain, the Surveyor's chain. 1665 J. Webb Stone-Heng (1725) 24 The Difference between our measuring Foot, and the Vicentine. |
| 1842 Francis Dict. Arts, *Measuring Glass. 1870 Dickens E. Drood xiii, The small squat measuring glass in which little Rickitts took her steel drops daily. |
| 1611 Bible Zech. ii. 1 A man with a *measuring line in his hand. |
| 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), *Measuring-Money, a certain Duty formerly laid upon Cloth besides Alnage. |
| 1774 M. Mackenzie Maritime Surv. 104 At the End of each Chain, or *Measuring-pole. |
| 1611 Bible Ezek. xlii. 17 Hee measured the North side fiue hundreth reedes, with a *measuring reed round about. |
| 1656 H. Phillips Purch. Patt. (1676) 197 Your *measuring Rod. 1870 J. H. Newman Gram. Assent ii. 476 Does Gibbon think to sound the depths of the eternal ocean with the tape and measuring-rod of his merely literary philosophy? |
| 1842–59 Gwilt Archit. §2212 The plumber's *measuring rule is 2 feet long. |
| 1884 Athenæum 8 Nov. 586/3 The theodolites, *measuring-staves, and plane-tables. |
| 1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 386 The *Measuring-tape is a kind of strong tape, graduated, marked, and coiled up by a little winch into a cylindrical box. |
| 1728 R. Morris Ess. Anc. Archit. Advt., Plane-Tables, Water-Levels, *Measuring-Wheels. 1842 Francis Dict. Arts, Perambulator, or Measuring Wheel, an instrument which being run along a road or other level surface indicates and registers the exact distance it passes over. |
| 1760–72 H. Brooke Fool of Qual. (1809) III. 19 She whipt up the *measuring yard, and..flew to the door. |
b. measuring cast: (
a)
lit. in the sport of throwing the bar, a throw so nearly equal to another that measurement is required to decide the superiority (?
obs.); (
b)
fig. a nice question, a ticklish point; a ‘toss-up’ (
arch.).
| 1632 Strafford in Browning Life (1892) 301 As if it weare a measuring cast, betwixt them, whoe weare like to proue the greater loosers vpon the parting. 1645 Waller On Fletcher's Plays Poems 179 When lusty shepheards throwe The barre by turnes, and none the rest out goe So farre but that the best are measuring casts. a 1661 Fuller Worthies (1840) III. 161 It is a measuring cast, whether this proverb pertaineth to Essex or this county. 1712 Addison Spect. No. 538 ¶5 Yet I thought some in the Company had been endeavouring who should pitch the Bar farthest; that it had for some time been a measuring Cast, and at last my Friend..had thrown beyond them all. 1898 Sir W. Harcourt in Times 18 Jan. 10/3 That majority you have succeeded in reducing to a measuring cast. |
▪ II. ˈmeasuring, ppl. a. [-ing2.] a. That measures.
| 1570 Billingsley Euclid 126 The number 5. is a part of the number 15...And this kynde of part is called commonly pars metiens or mensurans, that is, a measuryng part. |
b. measuring-worm: the larva of a geometrid moth; a geometer or looper.
| 1843 J. E. DeKay Zool. N.Y. vi. 41 It walks after the manner of some caterpillars called Measuring worms. 1859 Clemens in Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst. 186 The geometers, properly so called, or measuring worms. 1884 Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888) II. 445. 1903 W. J. Holland Moth Bk. 323 The larvæ, which are commonly known as ‘measuring-worms’, ‘span-worms’, or ‘loopers’, have the power in many cases of attaching themselves by the posterior claspers to the stems and branches of plants, and extending the remainder of the body outwardly at an angle. 1939 Duncan & Pickwell World of Insects x. 172 Certain large measuring-worms, of the family Geometridae, have the ability, when danger threatens, to stiffen themselves out at angles to the stem on which they have been feeding or crawling, and thereafter for several minutes or hours to resemble perfectly bare and lifeless twigs. 1956 W. R. Bird Off-Trail in Nova Scotia viii. 215, I saw some of those long ‘loopers’ or ‘measuring worms’ that I hadn't seen since a boy. |
Hence
ˈmeasuringly adv., as if taking a person's ‘measure’.
| 1879 I. L. Bird Rocky Mountains 44 A hard, sad-looking woman looked at me measuringly. |