meridian
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /məˈɹɪ.dɪ.ən/
ipa: /mɪ-/
ipa: /məˈɹɪ.di.ən/
rhymes: -ɪdiən
Forms: form: meridians
form: meridianing
form: meridianed
form: meridianed
Etymology: The noun is derived from Late Middle English meridian, meridien (“midday, noon; position of the sun at noon; the south; longitude of a place; (astronomy) celestial meridian”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman meridien (“midday”), Middle French meridien (“midday; the south; terrestrial meridian; (astronomy) celestial meridian”) (modern French méridien), and Old French meridiane, meridiiene, and from their etymon Latin merīdiānum (“midday; position of the sun at noon; the south”), a noun use of the neuter form of merīdiānus (“relating to midday; southern”); see further at etymology 1.
Sense 1.1 (“celestial meridian”) is ultimately modelled after Latin merīdiāna līnea (“meridian line”). Sense 5.2 (“midday rest; siesta”) is modelled after Late Latin meridiana (“midday; midday rest”), probably short for Latin merīdiāna hōra (“midday time”).
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: Simultaneously with the coming of the mist over earth and sea, where both seem merged into one, slowly and exactly at the same time on each side to the right and left rise and form gorgeous rainbows, that move gently up the sky. They ascend in pairs of the most brilliant color and hue. Upward they move until all the sky is meridianed with bows, which meet in a grand symphony of color in the zenith.
ref: 1889, Frederic Alva Dean, “Description of the Ancient Petoséga”, in The Heroines of Petoséga […], New York, N.Y.: Hawthorne Publishing Company […], →OCLC, page 10:
text: At the foot of the promontory on which stands Peng Lai Temple is the little Christian Church of Water City, a suburb of Teng-chou. In the church are hung these words: "One volume, Old and New Testaments, circling earth, meridianing Heaven. One seven-roomed Worship Hall, backing the sea, facing the City."
ref: 1922 July, “The Eighty-fifth Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America [Shantung Mission]”, in Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. [...] Part III: The Reports of the Boards and Permanent Committees to the One Hundred and Thirty-fourth General Assembly, Des Moines, Iowa, May 18–25, 1922, volume I (Third Series), Philadelphia, Pa.: Office of the General Assembly, […], →OCLC, page 157:
text: [T]reetops stare / Vertiginous and of two minds; and one / Is to let go; // The other, though, / Is to cling on, seeing clear / It is meridianed and centered by / The pure blue, the apple of its eye.
ref: 1954, E[dward] L[eslie] Mayo, “‘Whose Center is Everywhere’”, in David Ray, editor, Collected Poems (A New Letters Book), Kansas City, Mo.: University of Missouri; Athens, Oh.: Swallow Press, Ohio University Press, published 1981, →ISBN, page 86:
glosses: To cause an object to reach the meridian or highest point of (something).
examples: text: At the opposition of 1892 [James Edward] Keeler […] found, on comparing his drawings meridianed by Marth ephemeris with photographs of a globe made by him from [Giovanni] Schiaparelli's chart and set to the longitude and latitude of the time of observation: […]
ref: 1895 May, Percival Lowell, “On Martian Longitudes”, in George E[llery] Hale, James E[dward] Keeler, editors, The Astrophysical Journal: An International Review of Spectroscopy and Astronomical Physics, volume I, number 5, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 397:
text: By the time the moon meridianed, the weather had decidedly improved and the sea had gone down.
ref: 1902 October 25, “The Salving of the ‘Senator’”, in William, Robert Chambers, editors, Chambers’s Journal, volume V, number 256 (Sixth Series), London; Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, →OCLC, chapter IV, page 741, column 1:
text: Born in Massachusetts, in 1818, neath the shadow of Bunker Hill, and, incidentally of lineage with Robert Morris of Revolutionary fame, ere his life meridianed removing with his family to beautiful "blue grass Kentucky", the home of his heart, where he wrought well and his memory is revered.
ref: 1934, Proceedings of the Grand Chapter of Mississippi Order of the Eastern Star: Twenty-eighth Annual Session, Meridian, Miss.: Dement Bros. Print. Co., →OCLC, page 181:
text: The countable ribs meridianed over his blood's tides; / The scar-buttoned archipelago of his flexible spine; […]
ref: 1951, Poems 1951: The Prize-winning Entries for the Festival of Britain, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, →OCLC, page 231:
glosses: Of a celestial body: to reach its meridian.
Derived terms: word: meridianed