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of commutation (Astron.), the difference of the geocentric longitudes of the sun and a planet. -- Commutation of tithes, the substitution of a regular payment, chargeable to the land, for the annual tithes in kind. -- Commutation ticket, a ticket, as for transportation, which is the evidence of a contract for servic…

Condensed; compact; dense. [R.] The huge condense bodies of planets. Bentley.

Relative position or aspect of the planets; the face of the horoscope, according to the relative positions of the planets at any time. They [astrologers] undertook . . . to determine the course of a man's character and life from the configuration of the stars at the moment of his birth. Whewell.

The meeting of two or more stars or planets in the same degree of the zodiac; as, the conjunction of the moon with the sun, or of Jupiter and Saturn. See the Note under Aspect, n., 6.

rke. Conservation of areas (Astron.), the principle that the radius vector drawn from a planet to the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times. -- Conservation of energy, or Conservation of force (Mech.), the principle that the total energy of any material system is a quantity which can neither be increased nor dimi…

me original work of art or of the imagination; nature. We know that the whole creation groaneth. Rom. viii. 22. A dagger of the mind, a false creation. Shak. Choice pictures and creations of curious art. Beaconsfield.

A kind of castanet used by the Corybantes.

Shortened or reduced; -- 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.…

The interval by which the curtate distance of a planet is less than the true distance.

An aspect or position of two planets, when they are distant from each other a tenth part of the zodiac, or 36º.

moving downwards. Descending constellations or signs (Astron.), those through which the planets descent toward the south. -- 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…

The elongation, or angular distance from the sun; -- said chiefly of the inferior planets. [R.]

In the direction of the general planetary motion, or from west to east; in the order of the signs; not retrograde; -- said of the motion of a celestial body. Direct action. (Mach.) See Direct-acting. -- Direct discourse (Gram.), the language of any one quoted without change in its form; as, he said "I can not come;" -…

An unpropitious or baleful aspect of a planet or star; malevolent influence of a heavenly body; hence, an ill portent. [Obs.] Disasters in the sun. Shak.

The planet which is lord of the sign where another planet is. [Obs.] Crabb.

s diurnal motion. -- Diurnal parallax. See under Parallax. -- Diurnal revolution of a planet, the motion of the planet upon its own axis which constitutes one complete revolution.

The globe or planet which we inhabit; the world, in distinction from the sun, moon, or stars. Also, this world as the dwelling place of mortals, in distinction from the dwelling place of spirits. That law preserves the earth a sphere And guides the planets in their course. S. Rogers. In heaven, or earth, or under earth…

In the Ptolemaic system, the supposed circular orbit of a planet about the earth, but with the earth not in its center.

er. A satellite is eclipsed by entering the shadow of its primary. The obscuration of a planet or star by the moon or a planet, though of the nature of an eclipse, is called an occultation. The eclipse of a small portion of the sun by Mercury or Venus is called a transit of the planet.

The passing off from the sun's disk of an inferior planet, in a transit.