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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 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.

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

ne in which the major proposition is disjunctive; as, the earth moves in a circle or an ellipse; but in does not move in a circle, therefore it moves in an ellipse.

Not having the same center; -- said of circles, ellipses, spheres, etc., which, though coinciding, either in whole or in part, as to area or volume, have not the same center; -- opposed to concentric.

The ratio of the distance between the center and the focus of an ellipse or hyperbola to its semi-transverse axis.

Pertaining to an eclipse or to eclipses. Lunar ecliptic limit (Astron.), the space of 12º on the moon's orbit from the node, within which, if the moon happens to be at full, it will be eclipsed. -- Solar ecliptic limit, the space of 17º from the lunar node, within which, if a conjunction of the sun and moon occur, the…

An ellipse. [Obs.]

An instrument for describing ellipses; -- called also trammel.

A solid, all plane sections of which are ellipses or circles. See Conoid, n., 2 (a).

Of or pertaining to an ellipse; having the form of an ellipse; oblong, with rounded ends. The planets move in elliptic orbits. Cheyne.

In the form of an ellipse.

Deviation of an ellipse or a spheroid from the form of a circle or a sphere; especially, in reference to the figure of the earth, the difference between the equatorial and polar semidiameters, divided by the equatorial; thus, the ellipticity of the earth is

; as, to emerge from the water or the ocean; the sun emerges from behind the moon in an eclipse; to emerge from poverty or obscurity. "Thetis . . . emerging from the deep." Dryden. Those who have emerged from very low, some from the lowest, classes of society. Burke.

The reappearance of a heavenly body after an eclipse or occultation; as, the emersion of the moon from the shadow of the earth; the emersion of a star from behind the moon.

ce of a planet as supposed to move uniformly in a circle, and its place as moving in an ellipse. -- Equations of condition (Math.), equations formed for deducing the true values of certain quantities from others on which they depend, when different sets of the latter, as given by observation, would yield different val…

To obscure; to eclipse, as by superior splendor. Natural graces that extinguish art. Shak .

f functions, so called because one of the forms expresses the relation of the arc of an ellipse to the straight lines connected therewith. -- Explicit function, a quantity directly expressed in terms of the independently varying quantity; thus, in the equations y = 6x2, y = 10 -x3, the quantity y is an explicit functi…

g either behind another, as in the occultation of a star, or into its shadow, as in the eclipse of a satellite; -- opposed to emersion. Immersion lens, a microscopic objective of short focal distance designed to work with a drop of liquid, as oil, between the front lens and the slide, so that this lens is practically i…