tropic1
/ˈtrɒpɪk
/noun
1The parallel of latitude 23°26ʹ north (tropic of Cancer) or south (tropic of Capricorn) of the equator.The vineyard area extends from the tropic of Capricorn in the north to the 40th parallel in the south....
- These are birds of the Antarctic and never fly North of the tropic of Capricorn.
- The trade has had a big impact on the meat industry, especially in the top end where only two abattoirs remain open north of the tropic of Capricorn.
1.1 Astronomy Each of two corresponding circles on the celestial sphere where the sun appears to turn after reaching its greatest declination, marking the northern and southern limits of the ecliptic.Accounts of the celestial sphere typically refer to other circles on its surface, including the arctic and Antarctic circles, the zodiac, tropics, and the solstitial and equinoctial colures....
- A tropic point is the sun's position on the celestial sphere at the time of a solstice.
- Then he briefly describes the four principal circles of the celestial sphere: equator, zodiac, and the two tropic circles.
1.2 (the tropics) The region between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.The worm commonly known as dog heart worm, is widely dispersed and found in the tropics, subtropics and temperate zones....
- Generally, breeding seasons tend to be longer in the tropics than in the temperate zone.
- The Indica group is found in lowland paddies of the tropics.
adjective
another term for tropical (sense 1).Arguably, one of the best-kept secrets on the Cape Peninsula is that here, you find more species of plants acre for acre than probably any other area on the planet, surpassing even tropic rainforests in diversity....
- ‘We've offered to improve the road, but the Navy won't let us,’ he shouted above the chirping of tiny frogs and the thwack of thick tropic brush against the windows.
- I had visions of palm trees and blue lagoons and snorkelling under a tropic sky.
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting the point on the ecliptic reached by the sun at the solstice): via Latin from Greek tropikos, from tropē 'turning', from trepein 'to turn'.
trophy from Late Middle English:
Both tropic (Late Middle English) and trophy are ultimately from Greek trepein ‘to turn’. In ancient Greece and Rome a trophy was a pile of the weapons of a defeated army set up as a memorial of a victory. The attractive young trophy wife of a successful older man, is a term first used in the late 1980s. A tropic is a ‘turning point’, a point on the path through the sky that the sun can be seen to take through the year where, at the solstice, it appears to turn back again towards the equator.
Rhymes
tropic2
/ˈtrəʊpɪk/adjective
1 Biology Relating to, consisting of, or exhibiting tropism.Early red and green algae may have been unable to radiate 1,500 MYA because of physical factors such as nutrient conditions or tropic competition....
- At the multicellular level, tropic responses of the shoots and roots of flowering plants have been extensively studied.
- In plant terms these are familiar growth and development phenomena, such as de-etiolation, flower induction, wind sway response, regeneration, induced bud break/germination, tropic bending, etc.
2 Physiology variant spelling of trophic.