| 释义 |
astroˈnomical, a.
[f. prec. + -al1.]
1. a. Connected with, bearing upon, dealing with astronomy. (Cf. an Astronomical Society with an astronomic fact.) astronomical year: one of which the length is determined by astronomical observations, apart from conventional reckoning. astronomical ring, astronomical staff: see astronomer c.
1556Recorde Cast. Knowl. Pref. 11 If Astronomicall accompt were not. 1588A. King Canisius' Catech. I. iij, According to ye astronomicall calculation. 1692Bentley Boyle Lect. ii. 47 Aratus the Cilician, in whose Astronomical Poem this passage is now extant. 1818Hazlitt Eng. Poets i. (1870) 12 There can never be another Jacob's Dream. Since that time the heavens have gone further off, and grown astronomical. 1855Lewis Early Rom. Hist. v. §11 A solar eclipse..on the 21st of June in the astronomical year 399 b.c.
b. Of figures, distances, etc.: immense, similar in magnitude to those used in astronomy.
1899Daily News 7 Oct. 8/2 He..excused his delay on the ground that in stock-taking..they discovered that they omitted one credit line of thirty thousand pounds. Such familiarity with astronomical finance made Mr. Rylands somewhat irritable. 1934G. B. Shaw Too True to be Good Pref. p. 7 The odds against a poor person becoming a millionaire are of astronomical magnitude. 1947Evening News 23 Apr. 2/1 Britain ‘owes’ astronomical sums in war-debts to India and Egypt. 1953E. Hyams Gentian Violet i. 9 The value of stage, film, broadcasting and other rights was astronomical.
2. ellipt. as n. pl.
[1594Blundevil Exerc. i. xxvii. 73 Multiplication of Astronomical Fractions.] 1706Phillips, Astronomical Numbers or Astronomicals. See Sexagesimal Fractions. 1751Chambers Cycl., Astronomicals, a name used by some writers for sexagesimal fractions, on account of their use in astronomical calculations.
3. Comb., as astronomical clock: a clock which keeps sidereal time; astronomical telescope: a telescope designed for astronomical use, commonly one not giving an upright image (opp. terrestrial telescope); astronomical triangle: ‘a triangle on the celestial sphere whose vertices are the pole, the zenith, and the observed body’ (Webster 1961); = celestial triangle; astronomical unit: the mean distance between the earth and the sun (approx. 93 million miles), used as a unit for measuring distances within the solar system.
1856D. Lardner Handbk. Astr. I. vi. 136 The rate of the astronomical clock is so regulated that [etc.]. 1904Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 31/1 Astronomical clock, a clock keeping sidereal time. It indicates o h. o m. o s. when the first point of Aries crosses the meridian.
1882Encycl. Brit. XIV. 594/2 We can now understand the working of the ordinary astronomical telescope... The object glass furnishes an inverted but real image of a distant body, within our reach. 1917A. H. Holt Man. Field Astr. ii. 10 This spherical triangle..is so much used in field astronomy that it is called the astronomical triangle. Ibid. 11 Each part of the astronomical triangle, with the exception of the angle of the star, may be expressed in terms of the observer's position on the earth's surface (latitude) or the co-ordinates of the star.
1909Cent. Dict. Suppl. s.v. Unit, Astronomical unit. 1963Jerrard & McNeill Dict. Sci. Units 20 Astronomical unit..approximately equal to the mean distance between the sun and the earth (1·496 × 1011m)... Radar determinations carried out since 1960 indicate the astronomical unit will soon be known to an accuracy better than 1 in 106. |