gnomon (NO-mon) noun

   1. The raised arm of a sundial that indicates the time of day by its
      shadow.

   2. The remaining part of a parallelogram after a similar smaller
      parallelogram has been taken away from one of the corners.

[From Latin gnomon, pointer, from Greek, from gignoskein, to know.]

   "Eighty-six years in the making, one of the world's largest sundials has
   finally been installed at Place de la Concorde, as part of the Year 2000
   festivities of the City of Paris. It takes an approach more cerebral than
   celebratory. The sundial's pointer, or gnomon, is the 109-foot Obelisk of
   Luxor. Its base is the northern half of Place de la Concorde."
   Rose Marie Burke, Sundial Aids Millennium Countdown, The Wall Street
   Journal, Oct 26, 1999.

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Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/gnomon.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/gnomon.ram
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