a. and sb. [a. mod.Fr. anéroïde, f. Gr. ἀ priv. + νηρ-ός wet, damp: see -OID.]
A. adj. Specifying a barometer, in which the pressure of the air is measured, not by the height of a column of mercury or other fluid which it sustains, but by its action on the elastic lid of a box exhausted of air.
1848. Mechan. Mag., 19 Aug. [‘Aneroid’ does not occur in the description of ‘the new French barometer,’ but in the index to the volume.]
1849. Dent (title), The Construction and Uses of the Aneroid Barometer.
1863. Ansted, Ionian Isl., 88. To take with me an aneroid barometer, as I desired to check the various statements … as to the height.
B. sb. [Short for ‘Aneroid barometer.’]
1849. Dent, in Athenæum, 27 Jan., 99/1. In the Aneroid of M. Vidi a compensation for the variations of temperature is effected by gas.
1875. Bedford, Sailor’s Pocket Bk., iv. (ed. 2), 93. In the aneroid, atmospherical pressure is measured by its effect in altering the shape of a small, hermetically sealed, metallic box.
1879. C. King, in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 114/2. The pocket aneroid … resembles a watch in size and appearance.
b. attrib.
1859. L. Oliphant, China & Japan, I. xii. 225. A precipice 1000 feet high by aneroid measurement.
