Search the Dictionary

To sully; to stain; to blemish, as reputation. Sarcasms may eclipse thine own, But can not blur my lost renown. Hudibras.

Refuse boughs of trees; also, the clippings of hedges. [Prov. Eng.] Wright.

often used in composition and preceded by the word denoting the form; as, frigate-built, clipper-built, etc. Like the generality of Genoese countrywomen, strongly built. Landor.

Cloth or clippings cabbaged or purloined by one who cuts out garments.

ss, or the result, of calculating; computation; reckoning, estimate. "The calculation of eclipses." Nichol. The mountain is not so his calculation makes it. Boyle.

To clip with scissors. [Obs.] Beau. & Fl.

with jaws overlapping, used in bending chain sheets to the clews of sails; -- called also clip hook. Knight.

e in space, as two equal triangles, when placed one on the other. If the equator and the ecliptic had coincided, it would have rendered the annual revoluton of the earth useless. Cheyne.

So near the sun as to be obscured or eclipsed by his light, as the moon or planets when not more than eight degrees and a half from the sun. [Obs.] Planets that are oft combust. Milton.

nce, or aureola, which surrounds the sun, and which is seen only when the sun is totally eclipsed by the moon.

Of or pertaining to a corona (in any of the senses). The coronal light during the eclipse is faint. Abney.

An exceedingly faint roundish or somewhat oblong nebulous light near the ecliptic and opposite the sun, best seen during September and October, when in the constellations Sagittarius and Pisces. Its cause is not yet understood. Called also Gegenschein.

said of the distance of a planet from the sun or earth, as measured in the plane of the ecliptic, or the distance from the sun or earth to that point where a perpendicular, let fall from the planet upon the plane of the ecliptic, meets the ecliptic. Curtate cycloid. (Math.) See Cycloid.

lled from Calippus, who proposed it as an improvement on the Metonic cycle. -- Cycle of eclipses, a priod of about 6,586 days, the time of revolution of the moon's node; -- called Saros by the Chaldeans. -- Cycle of indiction, a period of 15 years, employed in Roman and ecclesiastical chronology, not founded on any a…

a dark complexion. O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverable dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day! milton. In the dark and silent grave. Sir W. Raleigh.

h. -- Descending node (Astron.), that point in a planet's orbit where it intersects the ecliptic in passing southward. -- Descending series (Math.), a series in which each term is numerically smaller than the preceding one; also, a series arranged according to descending powers of a quantity.

th part of the diameter of the sun or moon; -- a term used to express the quantity of an eclipse; as, an eclipse of eight digits is one which hides two thirds of the diameter of the disk.

less bright or distinct; to take away the luster of; to darken; to dull; to obscure; to eclipse. A king among his courtiers, who dims all his attendants. Dryden. Now set the sun, and twilight dimmed the ways. Cowper.

ull of unpropitious stellar influences; unpropitious; ill-boding. [Obs.] The moon In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds. Milton.

tail, as distinguished from the hair; the stump of a tail; the part of a tail left after clipping or cutting. Grew.