Now Hist. Also 8–9 -wizer. [Formed after G. wegweiser (= Du. wegwijzer, Sw. vägvisare, Da. vejviser), f. weg WAY sb.1 + weiser, agent-n. f. weisen to show.
The Eng. sense is not found in the other Teut. langs. In German the word has, besides its primary sense ‘one who or something which shows the way,’ several other meanings, the most common being ‘guide-post,’ which is also current in Du., Da. and Sw.]
1. An instrument for measuring and indicating a distance travelled by road.
Of various forms, usually operated either by the step of the pedestrian or by the revolution of the wheels of the vehicle.
1651. R. Child, in Hartlib’s Legacy (1655), 70. I say twenty Ingenuities have been found even in our days, as Watches, Clocks, Way-wisers, [etc.].
1654. Evelyn, Diary, 13 July. He [Dr. Wilkins] had above in his lodgings and gallery variety of shadows, dyals,… a way-wiser, [etc.]. Ibid. (1657), 6 Aug. I went to see Colonel Blount, who showed me the application of the Way-wiser to a coach, exactly measuring the miles, and showing them by an index as we went on.
a. 1679. J. Ward, Diary (1839), 160. An instrument calld a waywiser, by the motion whereof a man may see how many steps he takes in a-day.
1683. Hooke, in Birch, Hist. Roy. Soc. (1757), IV. 231. It was one part of a way-wiser for the sea … designed to keep a true account, not only of the length of the run of the ship through the water, but the true rumb or leeward way [etc.].
1701. Moxon, Math. Instr., 21. Waywiser, for the pocket; a movement, like a Watch to Number or count your steps or paces, in Order to find how far you walk in a day.
a. 1734. R. North, Life Sir D. North (1744), 202. I contrived a Way-wiser, and we both wrought upon it hard till it came to Perfection, and was fixed upon a Calash we used.
1886. Cheshire Gloss., Way-wizer, a pedometer.
[1891. N. & Q., Ser. VII. XI. 195/2. The waywiser [of c. 1800] … registers only up to twelve miles, after which distance the index must be again adjusted.]
fig. 1801. Monthly Mag., XII. 98. It is with the spying-glass of conjecture, not with the way-wiser of record, that the bearing of their sources must be made out.
¶ 2. [In the German sense.] A guide-post, finger-post. rare–1.
1855. W. White, To Switz. & Back, x. 127. Why should one side of the mountains have all the crosses, and the other all the way-wisers?
