Search the Dictionary

un enters at the winter solstice, about December 21. See Tropic. The sun was entered into Capricorn. Dryden.

of the sun, the zenith and nadir. -- Cardinal signs (Astron.) Aries, Lidra, Cancer, and Capricorn. -- Cardinal teeth (Zoöl.), the central teeth of bivalve shell. See Bivalve. -- Cardinal veins (Anat.), the veins in vertebrate embryos, which run each side of the vertebral column and returm the blood to the heart. Th…

orth or south, namely, the first point of the sign Cancer and the first point of the sign Capricorn, the former being the summer solstice, latter the winter solstice, in northern latitudes; - - so called because the sun then apparently stands still in its northward or southward motion.

Oblique; -- applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) which ascend most rapidly and obliquely. [Obs.] Skeat. Infortunate ascendent tortuous. Chaucer. --Tor"tu*ous*ly, adv. -- Tor"tu*ous*ness, n.

or, the northern circle being called the Tropic of Cancer, and the southern the Tropic of Capricorn, from the names of the two signs at which they touch the ecliptic.