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Lunar year   /lˈunər jɪr/   Listen
adjective
Lunar  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to the moon; as, lunar observations.
2.
Resembling the moon; orbed.
3.
Measured by the revolutions of the moon; as, a lunar month.
4.
Influenced by the moon, as in growth, character, or properties; as, lunar herbs.
Lunar caustic (Med. Chem.), silver nitrate prepared to be used as a cautery; so named because silver was called luna by the ancient alchemists.
Lunar cycle. Same as Metonic cycle. See under Cycle.
Lunar distance, the angular distance of the moon from the sun, a star, or a planet, employed for determining longitude by the lunar method.
Lunar method, the method of finding a ship's longitude by comparing the local time of taking (by means of a sextant or circle) a given lunar distance, with the Greenwich time corresponding to the same distance as ascertained from a nautical almanac, the difference of these times being the longitude.
Lunar month. See Month.
Lunar observation, an observation of a lunar distance by means of a sextant or circle, with the altitudes of the bodies, and the time, for the purpose of computing the longitude.
Lunar tables.
(a)
(Astron.) Tables of the moon's motions, arranged for computing the moon's true place at any time past or future.
(b)
(Navigation) Tables for correcting an observed lunar distance on account of refraction and parallax.
Lunar year, the period of twelve lunar months, or 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, and 34.38 seconds.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Lunar year" Quotes from Famous Books



... took the matter in hand and put things into better order. He abolished all attempt to record by the calendar a lunar year of twelve lunar months; he fixed the length of the civil year to agree as near as might be with that of the solar year, and arbitrarily altered the months; in fact, abandoned the "lunar month" and instituted the "calendar month." Thus he decreed that the ordinary year should be 365 days, but that ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... intercalary month being inserted from time to time to rectify the resulting error in the length of the year. The months had been originally called after the signs of the zodiac, whose names have come down to ourselves with comparatively little change. But by the side of the lunar year the Babylonians also used a sidereal year, the star Capella being taken as a fixed point in the sky, from which the distance of the sun could be measured at the beginning of the year, the moon being used as a mere pointer for the purpose. At a later date, however, this mode of ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce


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