Other forms: sundials
A sundial is a dial that tells the hour by the shadow it casts. An old sundial, read the sundial, a garden sundial.
The pointer must be angled to match the latitude and aimed at the pole, or it will not keep time through the year. Even set correctly it disagrees with a clock by up to a quarter of an hour, because the Earth's orbit is not a circle.
1nounsundialA dial that tells the hour by the shadow it casts.
“The old sundial in the garden showed that it was almost noon.”
sundial is a timepiece.
Sun plus dial, from Latin dies, a day. The word dial first meant a device showing the time of day.
From sun + dial. From sun + dial, a clarification of dial after it was used for other objects as well.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA