Also 7 barrim-. [f. Gr. βάρο-ς weight + μέτρον measure.]
An instrument for determining the weight or pressure of the atmosphere, and hence for judging of probable changes in the weather, ascertaining the height of an ascent, etc.
(The common barometer is a straight glass tube, 34 inches long and closed at the top, filled with mercury, and inverted in an open cup of the same liquid. The siphon barometer is a curved tube, with the mercury in the shorter limb exposed to the air; it is adapted as the wheel barometer found in ordinary weather-glasses by putting on the mercury in the shorter limb a float with a cord attached, which passes over a pulley, and as the float rises or falls, moves the indicating hand. For very exact readings a lofty tube filled with glycerine is sometimes used. See also ANEROID.)
1665–6. Phil. Trans., I. 153. A Barometer or Baroscope first made publick by that Noble Searcher of Nature, Mr. Boyle.
1672. Petty, Pol. Anat. (1691), 48. Changes in the Air … known by the Instrument call’d the Barrimeter.
1723. Mrs. Centlivre, Gamester, I. i. Your fob, like a Barometer, shews the temper of your heart, as that does the weather.
1813. Sir R. Wilson, Priv. Diary, II. 278. The Lutzen impression has made the bone of my left leg quite a barometer. [See ANEROID.]
fig. 1752. Hume, Pol. Disc., iv. 73. Interest is the true barometer of the State.
1827. Hare, Guesses, Ser. I. (1873), 154. Languages are the barometers of national thought and character.
1870. Miss Bridgman, R. Lynne, I. xi. 173. The barometer of Mr. Selwyn’s temper stood at stormy.
b. Barometer-gauge: an appliance resembling a barometer, attached to the receiver of an air-pump to indicate the rarity of the air within.
1783. Cavallo, in Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 449. A long barometer-gage was adapted to the pump by means of a bent brass tube.
