Also 9 (incorrectly) engiscope. [f. Gr. ἐγγύ-ς near at hand + -σκοπος looker: see -SCOPE.]
† a. In 17th and 18th c.: = MICROSCOPE (obs.). b. Subsequently variously employed in narrower sense. Goring (1830) applied it to denote a compound microscope of any kind; but as the term was most frequently used by him in his description of the Amician and similar reflecting microscopes, it is now commonly understood as a distinctive name of that class of instruments.
1684–5. Boyle, Min. Waters, 73. With differing Engyscopes, in differing Lights.
1692. Coles, Engyscope, an Instrument to discern the proportion of the smallest things.
1697. Evelyn, Numism., iv. 167. Engyscops, Microscops, and other Optick Glasses.
1731. Bailey, vol. II. Engyscope … the same as a microscope.
1832. Optic Instr. (Usef. Knowl. Soc.), xiv. § 92. 48. The section of this Engiscope.
1837. Goring & Pritchard, Microgr., 70. The ocular end of the engiscope.
