It's the word of the day for January 23rd.

Today's word is astrolabe, spelled A-S-T-R-O-L-A-B-E. Astrolabe is a noun, and

astrolabe is a compact instrument used to observe and

calculate the position of celestial bodies before the invention of the sextant. Here's the word used

in a sentence from the Boston Globe. Renaissance Treasures includes two contemporary navigational devices, a planospheric astrolabe from Persia and a pocket compass.

Think of them as beta version GPS, as well as two Mercator globes.

One dates from 1541 and shows the surface of the Earth.

The other dates from 1551 and shows the surface of the earth. The other dates from 1551 and shows the heavens.

Jeffrey Chaucer, who wrote the Canterbury Tales, also wrote a treatise on the astrolabe,

which begins with this description.

Thine astrolabe hath a ring to put in on the thomb of thy right hand in the taking of the height of thing is.

Chaucer is of course best known for his Middle English poetic masterpiece, the Canterbury Tales,

but when his nose wasn't buried in his writing, Chaucer was stargazing,

and some of his passion for the heavens rubbed off on his son, Louis,

who had displayed a special ability to learn sciences touching numbers and proportions.

Chaucer dedicated his treatise to the 10-year-old boy,

setting his instructions not in the usual Latin, but in naked words in English, so that little

Lewis could understand. When he got older, Lewis may have learned that the word astrolabe traces

to the late Greek name for the instrument. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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