Word.ws English Dictionary

earthly branches

earthly branches is the plural of earthly branch.

Meaning of earthly branch

Noun

earthly branch (plural earthly branches)

  1. (historical) The (approximately) twelve years of Jupiter's orbital period, forming the Chinese zodiac and personified as twelve or sixty gods known as Tai Sui.
  2. The twelve animals representing the Chinese zodiac, (particularly) as a birthyear.
  3. (obsolete) The twelve months of the Chinese lunar year.
  4. (historical navigation) The twelve bearings of traditional Chinese navigation, comprising 30° divisions of the compass beginning with due north.
  5. (historical) The duodecimal divisions of the Chinese seasons, beginning with the second of the three divisions of winter.
  6. (historical chronometry) The duodecimal divisions of the day into "Chinese" or "double hours", beginning with 11 pm.

See all 7 meanings of earthly branch

Questions about earthly branches

What is earthly branches the plural of?
Earthly branches is the plural of earthly branch.

Words near earthly branches in the dictionary

  1. earthlings
  2. earthlit
  3. earthlore
  4. earthly
  5. earthly branch
  6. earthly branches
  7. earthly marriage
  8. earthly marriages
  9. earthly paradise
  10. earthly paradises
  11. earthman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: earthly branches (page history and authors); earthly branch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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