engyscope
(ˈɛndʒɪskəʊp)
Also 9 (incorrectly) engiscope.
[f. Gr. ἐγγύ-ς near at hand + -σκοπος looker: see -scope.]
† a. In 17th and 18th c.: = microscope (obs.). b. Subsequently variously employed in narrower sense. Goring (1830) applied it to denote a compound microscope of any kind; but as the term was most frequently used by him in his description of the Amician and similar reflecting microscopes, it is now commonly understood as a distinctive name of that class of instruments.
| 1684–5 Boyle Min. Waters 73 With differing Engyscopes, and in differing Lights. 1692 Coles, Engyscope, an Instrument to discern the proportion of the smallest things. 1697 Evelyn Numism. iv. 167 Engyscops, Microscops, and other Optick Glasses. 1731 Bailey vol. II, Engyscope..the same as a microscope. 1832 Optic Instr. (Usef. Knowl. Soc.) xiv. §92. 48 The section of this Engiscope. 1837 Goring & Pritchard Microgr. 70 The ocular end of the engiscope. |