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longitude|ˈlɒndʒɪtjuːd, ˈlɒŋgɪtjuːd|
Also 7 -tud.
[ad. L. longitūdo, f. longus long a. Cf. F. longitude.]
1. Length, longitudinal extent; occas. an instance of this; a length; a long figure. † Also, tallness, height. Now chiefly jocular.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. viii. xxiv. (1495) 335 Orion..his lengthe and longitude stretchyth nyghe to the brede and latitude of thre synges. c1420Pallad. on Husb. iv. 431 And of the claue Is best an handful greet in crassitude And cubital let make her longitude. c1470MS. Lambeth No. 306 in Rel. Ant. I. 200 The longitude of men folowyng. Moyses xiij. fote and viij. ynches and half [etc.]. 1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie ii. xi[i]. (Arb.) 114 A bastard or imperfect rounde declining toward a longitude. 1607Rowlands Famous Hist. 64 Thy Giants longitude shall shorter shrink. 1653R. Sanders Physiogn. 161 The forehead..its..Longitude is from one temple to the other. 1669Sturmy Mariner's Mag. i. 23 A Superficies is a Longitude, having only Latitude. 1784Cowper Task v. 11 Mine [sc. a shadow] spindling into longitude immense. 1814Scott Wav. xviii, A petticoat, of scanty longitude. 1824― St. Ronan's xvii, The direct longitude of their promenade never exceeded a hundred yards. 1824Examiner 555/2 A longitude of beard that would honour a pubescent Jew. 1867Howells Ital. Journ. iii. 23 One may walk long through the longitude and rectitude of many of her streets. 1869Rogers Pref. Adam Smith's W. Nat. I. 11 The wisdom of government is to limit that border land to the narrowest possible longitude.
2. Length (in immaterial senses, esp. of time); long continuance. Now rare.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 499 The curing of a Horse waxing hot with weariness and longitude of the way. 1613M. Ridley Magn. Bodies Pref. Magn. 5 These men have found insteed of the longitude of places, a longitude of unprofitable labors. a1626Bp. Andrewes Serm. (1661) 15 The longitude, or continuance of the joy. 1661Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. 437 Of longitude or brevity of a disease. 1692Bentley Boyle Lect. 226 According to quantity of matter and longitude of distance. 1902N. & Q. 9th Ser. IX. 198/2 The life of the artist is all too brief for the exacting longitude of art.
3. Geog.
†a. The extent lengthwise (i.e. from east to west) of the habitable world as known to the ancients (obs.).
b. Distance east or west on the earth's surface, measured by the angle which the meridian of a particular place makes with some standard meridian, as (in England) that of Greenwich. It is reckoned to 180° east or west, and is expressed either in degrees, minutes, and seconds, or in time (15° being equivalent to 1 hour). Abbreviated long.
†c. occas. = Difference of longitude (between two places).
†d. In the 18th c. sometimes confusedly used for: The method of ascertaining longitude at sea. Obs.
For the origin of the term see latitude 4. circle of longitude: see circle n. 2.
c1391Chaucer Astrol. ii. §39 The arch of the equinoxial, that is conteyned or bounded by-twixe the 2 meridians, is cleped the longitude of the toun. 1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) I. 45 The longitude of the erthe habitable from the este to the weste..hath viijthe tymes v. tymes a clxxti myles and viijthe. 1527R. Thorne His Booke in Hakluyt (1589) 253 The longitude..is counted from West to East. 1551Robinson tr. More's Utop. (1895) p. xcix (Giles to Buslyde), I will be hable..to instructe you..in the longitude or true meridian of the ylande. 1594J. Davis Seaman's Secr. (1880) 284 The longitude between place and place, is the portion of the Equator, which is contained betweene the Meridians of the same places. 1625N. Carpenter Geog. Del. i. xi. (1635) 235 Places inioying the same Longitude are not alwayes equally distant from the first Meridian. 1712Steele Spect. No. 428 ⁋1 The late noble Inventor of the Longitude. 1791Boswell Johnson an. 1755 (1847) 99/1 Mr. Williams..had made many ingenious advances towards a discovery of the longitude. 1812–16Playfair Nat. Phil. II. 61 The hour, as reckoned under any two meridians, is different, and the difference is proportional to the difference of longitude. 1831Brewster Newton (1855) I. xiii. 350 The determination of the longitude at sea by observing the distance of the moon from the stars. 1841Elphinstone Hist. India II. 197 About the middle of the seventy-sixth degree of east longitude. 1878Huxley Physiogr. xix. (ed. 2) 329 All lines of longitude form circles which have the earth's centre as their centre.
fig.1852Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. xvi. 143 As if determined fully to ascertain her longitude and position, before she committed herself.
4. Astron. The distance in degrees reckoned eastward on the ecliptic from the vernal equinoctial point to a circle at right angles to the ecliptic through the heavenly body (or the point on the celestial sphere) whose longitude is required. (See also geocentric, heliocentric, heliographic.) † Also occas. in the etymologically prior sense: The length or total extent of the ecliptic or of the sun's annual course.
The use of latitude (see latitude 5) to denote distance from the ecliptic determined the astronomical application of the corresponding term longitude. circle of longitude: see circle n. 2.
c1391Chaucer Astrol. ii. §40 Knowe by thyn almenak the degree of the ecliptik of any signe in which that the planete is rekned for to be, and that is cleped the degree of his longitude. 1551Recorde Cast. Knowl. (1556) 176 So doo they call the motion of them [the Planetes] in Longitude, theyr distaunce by theyr naturall course from the beginninge of Aries. 1594Blundevil Exerc. Introd. (1636) 435 The Ecliptique line containeth 360 degrees, which is the Longitude of Heaven, and the first degree of the Longitude of any Starre beginneth at the first point of Aries. 1667Milton P.L. vii. 373 The glorious Lamp,..Regent of Day,..jocond to run His Longitude through Heav'ns high rode. 1725Pope Odyss. xix. 350 Before the sun His annual longitude of heav'n shall run. 1834M. Somerville Connex. Phys. Sci. (1849) 11 The mean or circular motion of a body estimated from the vernal equinox, is its mean longitude; and its elliptical, or true motion, reckoned from that point, is its true longitude. 1867Denison Astron. without Math. 270 Geocentric or common celestial longitude.
5. Comb., as longitude-table; † longitude hunter, one bent on inventing a method for ascertaining the longitude; longitude star (see quot.); longitude watch, a chronometer for use in ascertaining the longitude.
1738Weddell Voy. up Thames 64 At College they had been pestered with so many crack-brain'd *Longitude-Hunters.
1842G. W. Francis Dict. Arts, etc., *Longitude Stars, a term frequently used to denote those fixed stars which have been selected for the purpose of finding the longitude by lunar observations. The chief of these are as follows:—Aldebaran, Pollux, Regulus, Spica Virginis, Antares, Formanault, and the largest star in Aquila.
1790Margetts (title) *Longitude Tables.
1763Ann. Reg., Chron. 100 The trial of Mr. Harrison's *longitude watch. |