An Anemometer is also known as a wind vane. It is an instrument designed for the measurement of wind speed. Wind velocity or speed is measured by a cup anemometer, an instrument with three or four small hollow metal hemispheres set so that they catch the wind and revolve about a vertical rod. An electrical device records the revolutions of the cups and calculates the wind velocity. The word anemometer comes from the Greek word for wind, "anemos."

Mechanical Anemometer
In 1450, the Italian art architect Leon Battista Alberti invented the first mechanical anemometer; consisting of a disk placed perpendicular to the wind. It would rotate by the force of the wind, and by the angle of inclination of the disk the wind force momentary showed itself. 

Hemispherical Cup Anemometer
The hemispherical cup anemometer was invented in 1846 by Irish researcher, John Thomas Romney Robinson and consisted of four hemispherical cups. The cups rotated horizontally with the wind and a combination of wheels recorded the number of revolutions in a given time. 

Sonic Anemometer
The sonic anemometer (invented by geologist Dr. Andreas Pflitsch in 1994) determines instantaneous wind speed and direction (turbulence) by measuring how much sound waves travelling between a pair of transducers are sped up or slowed down by the effect of the wind. 

An anemometer Anemometers exist within two classes:
1) those which measure the velocity (speed) of the wind
2) those which measure the pressure (force) of the wind

As there is a close connection between the pressure and the velocity and a suitable anemometer of either class will give information about both these quantities.

Root: The term anemometer is derived from the Greek word, anemos, meaning wind; and meter being an instrument that records or regulates the amount of something passing through it.

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