equinox
noun
Simple meaning
Either of two times of the year when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator and day and night are of equal length.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
eekwuhnahksSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈikwənɑks
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Either of two times of the year when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator and day and night are of equal length
One of two times in the year (one in March and the other in September) when the length of the day and the night are equal, which occurs when the sun is directly overhead at the equator; this marks the beginning of spring in one hemisphere and autumn in the other.
also figuratively
The circumstance of a twenty-four hour time period having the day and night of equal length.
astronomy
One of the two points in space where the apparent path of the Sun intersects with the equatorial plane of the Earth.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Either of two times of the year when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator and day and night are of equal length
Used this way, equinox is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
September 22.
March 21.
A slow westward shift of the equinoxes along the plane of the ecliptic caused by precession of the Earth's axis of rotation.
September 22.
March 21.
September 22.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.