observatory

UK/əbˈzɜːvət(ə)ɹi/US/əbˈzɝvətɔɹi/

nounB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,327 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: observatories

An observatory is a building from which the sky is studied. A mountain observatory, the royal observatory, visit the observatory.

They are built high and dry and far from towns, because air and light both spoil the view — which is why the best sites are deserts and mountain tops. The dome turns so the slit can follow a star. Radio telescopes need quiet of a different kind.

Definitions of observatory

1nounobservatoryA building from which the sky is studied.B2
“From the observatory on the mountain, astronomers watched the comet pass.”

observatory is a building.

Where it comes from

French observatoire comes from observer, from Latin observare, to watch over — ob plus servare, to keep.

French
observatoire
English, today
observatory

Borrowed from French observatoire. French observatoire, equivalent to observe + -atory.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Science & Space

Practise this word

observatory in the wild

The observatory was administered by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) from the early 1980s until 2019, after which it was overseen by NOIRLab.
Kitt Peak National Observatory
Four non-scientific buildings, including a dormitory, were lost in the fire. 15 months later in September 2023, the observatory reopened to the public.
Kitt Peak National Observatory
A space telescope (also known as space observatory) is a telescope in outer space used to observe astronomical objects.
Space telescope
The ROG has the IAU observatory code of 000, the first in the list.
Royal Observatory, Greenwich
The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August.
Royal Observatory, Greenwich

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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