How to Use sundial in a Sentence

sundial

noun
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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 last sundial was placed was in 2008, for Latin music heartthrob José José.
    — Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2021
  • Up until the early 19th century sundials were the main instrument people used to tell time.
    — Megan Arnett, Scientific American, 15 Mar. 2018
  • 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
  • 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 time for each image will then be confirmed, using digital sundials to calculate shadow length and direction.
    — Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, The New York Review of Books, 10 June 2019
  • 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
  • The ancient Egyptians invented the first water clocks and sundials more than 3,500 years ago.
    — Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 25 Apr. 2023
  • All clocks rely on stable oscillators, like the pendulum in a grandfather clock or the earth’s rotation for a sundial.
    — Chelsea Gohd, Discover Magazine, 7 Dec. 2018
  • Inside the building are an Egyptian sundial and a Foucault pendulum.
    — Marla Jo Fisher, Orange County Register, 28 Nov. 2024
  • Designed like a huge sundial, the Arctic Henge casts shadows in precise locations between its arched gateways.
    — Samuel Sanders, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 July 2024
  • The earliest record of a sundial was dated in ancient Egypt around 1500 BC.
    — Ted Mico, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2021
  • Bill Nye helps create a sundial at Cornell University that glows when the Sun reaches its daily peak in the sky.
    — Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 2 Sep. 2011
  • 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 good option would be a geographical portable sundial, the closest Romans got to an iPhone.
    — Meghan Bartels, Smithsonian, 20 Feb. 2017
  • In his Oxfordshire studio, Harber and his team create sculptures, water features and sundials out of metal.
    — Washington Post, 19 June 2019
  • The curving observation tower functions similarly to a massive sundial and marks the changing of the seasons.
    — Adam Williams, New Atlas, 4 Nov. 2024
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Not only this, but fascinated by the sundials and time-telling monuments inside the course, Hovland reportedly skipped swing practice to soak in the heritage.
    — Devlina Sarkar, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Oct. 2025
  • Through its intricate architecture, the library's Great Reading Room morphs into a sundial once the solstice hits.
    — Weldon Johnson, azcentral, 19 June 2018

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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