How to Use sundial in a Sentence

sundial

noun
  • The U.S. and the U.K., by contrast, have turned back the sundial.
    James Wolcott, The Hive, 9 Aug. 2017
  • Beep’s and the sundial are on our 49 Mile Scenic Route.
    Heather Knight, SFChronicle.com, 15 Nov. 2019
  • The pole serves as a gnomon, the part of a sundial that casts a shadow to denote time.
    Jeanne Huber, Washington Post, 20 Apr. 2020
  • The sundial shows the most exact time at the spring and autumn equinoxes.
    Karel Janicek, Fox News, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Athletes inch around the bases like light across a sundial.
    Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 14 July 2022
  • The sundial that resides in the middle of the garden was a gift from the 10th Duke of Beaufort and his staff on the Badminton Estate.
    Rachel Silva, ELLE Decor, 27 Sep. 2022
  • The last sundial was placed was in 2008, for Latin music heartthrob José José.
    Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2021
  • And this sundial in the shape of a cross is a gem among gems for its melding of science, religion and art.
    Steve Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 6 July 2017
  • Even the giant sundial out front is getting into the act.
    Steve Rubenstein, SFChronicle.com, 4 Sep. 2020
  • From a pagan temple to a cosmic sundial to a Christian church, the Pantheon has lived up to its name of all things to all gods.
    Christine Van Blokland, USA TODAY, 26 Apr. 2017
  • And near the front entrance, a big sundial lets students locate the sun’s position as light spills through the windows.
    Kellie B. Gormly, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Feb. 2023
  • The earliest record of a sundial was dated in ancient Egypt around 1500 BC.
    Ted Mico, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2021
  • Without the 9 to 5 metering out the hours of our day, breakfast-time, lunch-time, snack-time and dinner-time have become the new sundials of our waking hours.
    Amanda Albee, Dallas News, 17 Apr. 2020
  • There are shops, restaurants, and galleries to explore, but the area’s biggest draw is the four-acre desert botanical garden marked with a huge sundial — one of the world’s largest.
    Evie Carrick, Travel + Leisure, 15 Mar. 2023
  • The ancient Egyptians invented the first water clocks and sundials more than 3,500 years ago.
    Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 25 Apr. 2023
  • That might explain why the villa’s bronzes include an exuberantly leaping piglet and a sundial in the form of a ham.
    Peter Saenger, WSJ, 21 June 2019
  • Outside, check out the giant sundial designed by sculptor Henry Moore, and the shiny bronze Copernicus statue in the front of the building.
    Rebecca Holland, Forbes, 21 May 2021
  • Art deco details abound, including a sundial on the front of the house, door medallions, and a dramatic staircase in the foyer.
    Megan Barber, Curbed, 26 June 2019
  • Previously, the Romans and other cultures used sundials to track daytime hours of the sun.
    Kyle Roderick, Forbes, 16 July 2023
  • The need to gauge the divisions of the day and night led the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans to create sundials, water clocks and other early chronometric tools.
    William J. H. Andrewes, Scientific American, 23 Jan. 2012
  • A more than 2,000-year-old portable sundial in the shape of an Italian ham was actually found near Pompeii.
    Eoin O'Carroll, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Mar. 2021
  • Military experts say the cloud and its dark shadow can be seen as a kind of sundial that suggests when an American plane took the photograph.
    William J. Broad, New York Times, 23 May 2016
  • The perfect gift from a wife to a husband, this personalized sundial is sure to guide all of your adventures together.
    Cailey Lindberg, Good Housekeeping, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Up until the early 19th century sundials were the main instrument people used to tell time.
    Megan Arnett, Scientific American, 15 Mar. 2018
  • The gnomon - the part of the sundial that casts the shadow - is needed so that scientists back home on Earth can see how lighting changes from full illumination to shadow.
    Discover Magazine, 6 Aug. 2012
  • One of the museum's main architectural features is the Oculus, which serves as a sundial; as the sun moves across the sky, a circle of sunlight tracks time on a calendar set into the floor.
    Stefanie Waldek, Travel + Leisure, 16 July 2021
  • His design was circular: a brick path, set in a lawn, that formed seven concentric rings winding toward a sundial in the center.
    Nicola Twilley, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
  • Nieto’s artful shirt offers abstract embroidery of a Dorado fish on the front and a stitched sundial flower on the back in a color palette that is an ode to ocean water colors.
    Houston Chronicle, 18 May 2018
  • Among sunflowers and sundials, this summer home is perfect for anyone—including their rescue puppy Foxy Lady—to have the space and permission to feel light and play.
    Ko Im, Town & Country, 14 July 2015
  • There are lots of fanciful touches: a sundial that can remove years from one’s life, a character in a red velvet smoking jacket who offers tea and sugar to his captive.
    Samantha Laine Perfas, The Christian Science Monitor, 6 Sep. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sundial.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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