Search the Dictionary

A luminous circle, usually prismatically colored, round the sun or moon, and supposed to be caused by the refraction of light through crystals of ice in the atmosphere. Connected with halos there are often white bands, crosses, or arches, resulting from the same atmospheric conditions.

n of man and domestic animals; -- called also harvest louse, and harvest bug. -- Harvest moon, the moon near the full at the time of harvest in England, or about the autumnal equinox, when, by reason of the small angle that is made by the moon's orbit with the horizon, it rises nearly at the same hour for several days…

ver the earth like a great arch or dome; the firmament; the sky; the place where the sun, moon, and stars appear; -- often used in the plural in this sense. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. Shak. When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven. D. Webster.

vided into twelve months, with an extra month inserted after every month in which two new moons occur (once in three years). The intercalary month has the name of the one which precedes it. The year usually commences about April 11. The months are follows:

One of the four cardinal points, east, west, north, or south. [R.] When the moon is in the hinge at East. Creech. Nor slept the winds . . . but rushed abroad. Milton. Hinge joint. (a) (Anat.) See Ginglymus. (b) (Mech.) Any joint resembling a hinge, by which two pieces are connected so as to permit relative turning in o…

hining partitions of which are more beautiful than the blossom; -- called also lunary and moonwort. Lunaria biennis is common honesty; L. rediva is perennial honesty.

One of the curved ends of a crescent; esp., an extremity or cusp of the moon when crescent-shaped. The moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. Thomson.

process or appendage; as, horned cattle; having some part shaped like a horn. The horned moon with one bright star Within the nether tip. Coleridge. Horned bee (Zoöl.), a British wild bee (Osmia bicornis), having two little horns on the head. -- Horned dace (Zoöl.), an American cyprinoid fish (Semotilus corporialis)…

Appearance of the moon when increasing, or in the form of a crescent. J. Gregory. Letters of horning (Scots Law), the process or authority by which a person, directed by the decree of a court of justice to pay or perform anything, is ordered to comply therewith. Mozley & W.

The moonfish (Selene setipinnis).

The silver moonfish (Selene vomer).

e crystal is protected by a metallic cover. Hunter's room, the lunation after the harvest moon. -- Hunter's screw (Mech.), a differential screw, so named from the inventor. See under Differential.

To make clear, bright, or luminous. Here, when the moon illustrates all the sky. Chapman.

able; -- said of persons or things; as, inconstant in love or friendship. "The inconstant moon." Shak. While we, inquiring phantoms of a day, Inconstant as the shadows we survey! Boyse.

To become more nearly full; to show more of the surface; to wax; as, the moon increases. Increasing function (Math.), a function whose value increases when that of the variable increases, and decreases when the latter is diminished.

ncreasing; growing; augmenting; swelling; enlarging. Between the incresent and decrescent moon. Tennyson.

A2, Bn, 2 and n are inferior characters. -- Inferior tide, the tide corresponding to the moon's transit of the meridian, when below the horizon.

The entrance of the moon into the shadow of the earth in eclipses, the sun's entrance into a sign, etc.

ety. Crocus and hyacinth with rich inlay Broidered the ground. Milton. The sloping of the moonlit sward Was damask work, and deep inlay Of braided blooms. Tennyson.

Belonging or pertaining to the time when the moon, at or near its conjunction with the sun, is invisible. Milton.