meridian
pronunciation
How to pronounce meridian in British English:
UK [məˈrɪdiən]
How to pronounce meridian in American English:
US [məˈrɪdiən]
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- Noun:
- an imaginary great circle on the surface of the earth passing through the north and south poles at right angles to the equator
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- Adjective:
- of or happening at noon
Word Origin
- meridian
- meridian: [14] Etymologically, meridian denotes the ‘middle of the day’. It comes via Old French from Latin merīdiānus, a derivative of merīdiēs ‘mid-day’. This was an alteration of an earlier medidiēs, a compound noun formed from medius ‘middle’ (source of English medium) and diēs ‘day’. The application of the word to a circle passing round the Earth or the celestial sphere, which is an ancient one, comes from the notion of the sun crossing it at noon.=> medium
- meridian (n.)
- mid-14c., "noon," from Old French meridien "of the noon time, midday; the Meridian; southerner" (12c.), and directly from Latin meridianus "of midday, of noon, southerly, to the south," from meridies "noon, south," from meridie "at noon," altered by dissimilation from pre-Latin *medi die, locative of medius "mid-" (see medial (adj.)) + dies "day" (see diurnal). Cartographic sense first recorded late 14c. Figurative uses tend to suggest "point of highest development or fullest power." The city in Mississippi, U.S., was settled 1854 (as Sowashee Station) at a railway junction and given its current name in 1860, supposedly by people who thought meridian meant "junction" (they perhaps confused the word with median).
Example
- 1. Of or relating to meridians or a meridian .
- 2. The meridian was a very understandable derivative from what was probably the most ancient astronomical instrument of all , the gnomon , used for measuring the different lengths of the sun 's shadow .
- 3. Looking south , the observer measured the shadow at noon ; looking north during the night , he measured the times at which the various circumpolar made their upper and lower transits across the meridian .
- 4. Their astronomical system was thus closely associated with the concept of the meridian ( the great circle of the celestial sphere passing through the pole star and the observer 's zenith ) , and they determined systematically the culminations and lower transits ( meridian passages ) of these circumpolar stars .
- 5. Meridian circulation is closely related to life . Life would end , if meridian circulation stops .