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Equinoctial   Listen
Equinoctial

noun
1.
The great circle on the celestial sphere midway between the celestial poles.  Synonyms: celestial equator, equinoctial circle, equinoctial line.



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"Equinoctial" Quotes from Famous Books



... Liverpool on the 20th of March, she was bound for America with a burden of nine hundred and thirty-one souls, principally emigrants. The equinoctial gales were blowing, and Captain Williams thought it wise to make for the Harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Arrived off Lake Prospect on the 31st, the vessel was expected, very shortly, to be safe in port; but drifting somewhat out of her proper direction she ran on to a submerged reef. All hands ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... therefore says to government, "Go on—be good, and you'll be happy. Grow up in the way you are bent, and when you get old, you'll be there." It sees a gigantic future for the country. It sees the Polar sea running with warm water, the North Pole maintaining a magnificent perpendicularity, and the Equinoctial Line extended all around the earth, including Hoboken and Hull. It sees its millions of people happy in their golden (greenback and currency) prosperity, and also happy in a full supply of PUNCHINELLO ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various

... antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the South. Falkland Islands, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue their gigantic ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... to announce to us the completion of his Essay on the Pericyclical Motions of the Earth's Axis, and the precession of the equinoctial points. If an old Roman of the period of the Republic had returned to life, and talked of the impending election of some laurel-crowned consul, or of the last battle with Mithridates, his ideas would not have been more alien to the times, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... the turf after it was laid. This was the beginning of a long and dreary autumnal storm, a deferred "equinoctial," as many considered it. The mountain streams were all swollen and turbulent, and the steep declivities were furrowed in every direction by new channels. It made the house seem doubly desolate to hear the wind howling and the rain beating upon the roofs. The poor relation who ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... there were occasional showers, and the clouds in the eastern horizon resumed their threatening appearance, bringing some hard squalls, and rain from that quarter. In the middle of March (being the time when equinoctial gales are looked for in most parts of the world) there were two or three days of squally, unsettled weather, with rain, that seemed to terminate the season of the westerly monsoon. After the 1st of April, the weather was invariably fine, and the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... is indeed only on the chalk hills that I ever feel disposed to quarrel with this English climate, for all weathers are good to those who love the open air, and have their special attractions. What a pleasure it is to be out in rough weather in October when the equinoctial gales are on, "the wind Euroclydon," to listen to its roaring in the bending trees, to watch the dead leaves flying, the pestilence-stricken multitudes, yellow and black and red, whirled away in flight on flight before the ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... I have already said, she had been caught up by an enormous wave, and might have been said to be LIFTED over the barrier into her pres- ent position. Besides, on that ever memorable night, there had not only been the ordinary spring-tide, but an equinoctial tide, such a one as could not be expected to occur again for many months. Waiting was out of the question; so Curtis determined to run the risk, and to take advantage of the spring-tide, which would occur to-day, to make an attempt to get the ship, lightened as she was, ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... She thought in French, too, for one thing. And, in any case, Rogers could not have heard her, for he was listening now to the uproar of the children as they criticised Daddy's ridiculous effusion. A haystack, courted in vain by zephyrs, but finally taken captive by an equinoctial gale, strained nonsense too finely for their sense of what was right and funny. It was the pictures he now drew in the book that woke their laughter. He gave the stack a physiognomy ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... the tropic zone, and but a few degrees from the equinoctial line, there is chillness in the air of the night, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... word to Philip that Hawkins was again going out, and preparations had been made to receive him. Suspecting nothing, Hawkins with his four consorts sailed, as before, in October 1567. The start was ominous. He was caught and badly knocked about by an equinoctial in the Bay of Biscay. He lost his boats. The Jesus strained her timbers and leaked, and he so little liked the look of things that he even thought of turning back and giving up the expedition for the season. ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... stored up by the Britons. Shortly after, Caesar returned to Gaul, having heard while in Britain of the death of his favourite daughter Julia, the wife of Pompey, his great rival. His camp at Richborough or Sandwich was far distant, the dreaded equinoctial gales were at hand, and Gaul, he knew, might at any moment of his absence start into a flame. His inglorious campaign had lasted just four months and a half—his first had been far shorter. As Caesar ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... to the capital in which Sir Magnus was reigning. It was as though you were to sojourn for three days at the park-gates before you were entertained at the mansion. Therefore they stayed at Boulogne, and Mrs. Mountjoy tried the bathing, cold as the water was with equinoctial gales, in order that there might be the appearance of a reason for her being at Boulogne. And for company's sake, in the hope of maintaining some fellowship with her mother, Florence bathed also. "Mamma, he has not written again," ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... wave-like motion bare heads, or helmets, or red caps, or else bayonets or human shoulders with such impetuosity that some people disappeared every now and then in this swarming mass, which was mounting up without a moment's pause, like a river compressed by an equinoctial tide, with a continuous roar under an irresistible impulse. When they got to the top of the stairs, they were scattered, and their chant died away. Nothing could any longer be heard but the tramp of all the shoes intermingled with the chopping ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... tore at the tightly furled sails. Great green walls of water, capped with snowy foam, beat thunderously against the sides of the "Ranger." Now and then a port would be driven in, and the men between decks drenched by the incoming deluge. The "Ranger" had encountered an equinoctial gale ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... the broad sea? But we must have already emerged and gone seven hundred or eight hundred leagues; and if I had here an astrolabe to take the altitude of the pole, I could tell thee how many we have travelled, though either I know little, or we have already crossed or shall shortly cross the equinoctial line which parts the two opposite ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... March, when an event occurred which would have been a more than nine days' wonder even in a busier spot than Tor Bay. The equinoctial gales had been protracted and severe. For days the sea off Fair Head, and through the strait that separates the mainland from Rathlin Island, had run mountains high; and now, though the surface was smooth and glistening in the ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare

... run out in our galley as far as the Start, when the appearance of the weather became very threatening. It was just about the time of the equinoctial gales, and there was a consultation among us whether we should run into ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... for they could not be used while yet green, and some time was necessary to allow them to get seasoned. The carpenters, therefore, worked vigorously during the month of April, which was troubled only by a few equinoctial gales of some violence. Master Jup aided them dexterously, either by climbing to the top of a tree to fasten the ropes or by lending his stout shoulders to carry ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... of Guiana is directly east from Peru towards the sea, and lieth under the equinoctial line; and it hath more abundance of gold than any part of Peru, and as many or more great cities than ever Peru had when it flourished most. It is governed by the same laws, and the emperor and people observe the same religion, and the same form and policies in government as were used ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh

... and heavy rain each night,—it is the hurricane season;—and it seems these become more violent the farther south we sail. But we are nearing those equinoctial regions where the calm of nature is never disturbed ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... other hand, fixes it much later, about 937 years before Christ. His opinion is grounded principally on a supposition, that the Greek sphere was invented by two of the Argonauts, who delineated the expedition under the name of Argo, one of the constellations. And as the equinoctial colure passed through the middle of Aries, when that sphere was constructed, he infers, by calculations of their retrograde motion from their place then till the year A.D. 1690, that the expedition took place in 937 before Christ. To this, however, there seem to be insurmountable ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... dial-plate—observe me now—I reduce the space of a day to one, two, three minutes, as I chose, retarding or accelerating, but always in just proportion. 'Tis set for these December days; you will remark the sun's ambit—how it lies south of the zenith, and how far short it rises and falls from the equinoctial points. But wait awhile, and in a few minutes—that is to say, days—you shall see him start to widen his circuit. Here now is Saturn, with his rim: and here Venus—mark how delicately she lifts, following the motion of ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... Man bearing the waterpot. The fourth point, that held by the sun at the autumnal equinox, would appear to have been already assigned to the foot of the Serpent-holder as he crushes down the Scorpion's head; but a flying eagle, Aquila, is placed as near the equinoctial point as seems to have been consistent with the ample space that it was desired to give to the emblems of the great conflict between the Deliverer and the Serpent. Thus, as in the vision of Ezekiel, so in the constellation figures, the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Eagle, ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder



Words linked to "Equinoctial" :   great circle, equinoctial point, equinox, equinoctial line, equator



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