English

Adjective

solstitial ‎(not comparable)

1. Pertaining to a solstice.

   a solstitial point

   • 1903, John Jones, A kinetic universe, page 51:

     […] Fig. 2 is taken as being in the solstitial meridian plane N W S E, with the node D in front at the centre of the figure, and the node V behind the figure, D C V being the nodal diameter of the Earth, and W C E a solstitial diameter rectangular to D C V.

   • 2000, Peter Lancaster Brown, Megaliths, Myths and Men: An Introduction to Astro-Archaeology, page 214:

     Gaillard had tried to show that the avenues had a solstitial orientation.

2. Occurring on a solstice.
   • 1827, in The Correspondent, volume 1, page 182:

     […] the moment of his birth, the solstitial moon is to be full, […]

Quotations

• 1923, Alfred Louis Kroeber, Anthropology, page 376:

  These two stages of the descriptive and the solstitial moon series were long ago passed through in southern Mexico and a need felt for a more precise time reckoning.

• 1996, Stacy B. Schaefer, Peter T. Furst, People of the peyote: Huichol Indian history, religion, & survival, page 357:

  The same solstitial event occurs for the dry season, when Paritzika gains sight from the sun ray that filters through the nierika in the center of his tepari. The daily path of the sun is also charted inside the temple.

• 2006, Jacqueline Ingalls Garnett, Newgrange Speaks for Itself: Forty Carved Motifs, page 18:

  The elaborate and costly provision for witnessing the solstitial event alone confirms this. Something in addition was done here, on behalf of the immaterial fraction of personhood that can be imagined to survive the death of the body […]

Derived terms

• solstitially

Translations