nychthemeron
UK/nɪkˈθɛm.ə.ɹɒn//nɪkˈθi.mə.ɹɑn/
nychthemeron noun: a period of one day and one night, a date: in the West, a period of 24 consecutive hours.
Noun
nychthemeron (plural nychthemera or nychthemerons)
- A period of one day and one night, a date: in the West, a period of 24 consecutive hours.
- It has not yet been found by Observation, whether Mercury turns upon its own Axis, ... that is, whether it has the vicissitude of Day and Night, much less what is the space of its Nychthemeron or Natural Day; but one may safely enough conjecture that it does revolve about its Axis, since the other...1715, David Gregory, The Elements of Astronomy, Physical and Geometrical, volume 2
- Ideler passes over the Indians, and with good reason ; for they had not the week, and could not have had it, since they divided the nychthemeron into thirty hours, which the following out the same method would give rise to an entirely different series of planetary regents.1839, The Foreign Quarterly Review, volume XXII, Black and Armstrong (London), page 181
- Synonyms:
- twenty-four hour day, 24-hour day
Examples of nychthemeron in a sentence
- Now, the Arabs assumed as the beginning of their Nychthemeron the point where the setting sun intersects the circle of the horizon.1879, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Bīrūnī, translated by C. Edward Sachau, The Chronology of Ancient Nations: An English Version of the Arabic Text...
- For the division of the nychthemeron into equal parts, we are indebted to the Sumerians.1936, Osiris, History of Science Society, page 112:
- Geminus says in his Introduction to the Phenomena (VI, 1-4) that the nychthemeron (a day and night together) is not of constant length.1998, James Evans, The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy:
- The Hindus consider the day as the first, the night as the second, part of the nychthemeron.2000, William Wilson Hunter Sir, Sekharipuram Vaidyanatha Viswanatha, Clarisse Bader, The Indian Empire: its people, history, and products:
Synonyms of nychthemeron
Forms of nychthemeron
| plural | nychthemera |
|---|---|
| plural | nychthemerons |
| alternative form | nycthemere |
| alternative form | nycthemeron |
Origin of nychthemeron
From Ancient Greek νυχθήμερον (nukhthḗmeron), noun use of the neuter singular form of νυχθήμερος (nukhthḗmeros, “lasting a day and night”), from νύξ (núx, “night”) + ἡμέρα (hēméra, “day”).
Questions about nychthemeron
- What does nychthemeron mean?
- Nychthemeron means a period of one day and one night, a date: in the West, a period of 24 consecutive hours.
- How do you use nychthemeron in a sentence?
- Now, the Arabs assumed as the beginning of their Nychthemeron the point where the setting sun intersects the circle of the horizon.
- What part of speech is nychthemeron?
- Nychthemeron is a noun.
- How do you pronounce nychthemeron?
- Nychthemeron is pronounced /nɪkˈθɛm.ə.ɹɒn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of nychthemeron?
- The plural of nychthemeron is nychthemera.
Words near nychthemeron in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nychthemeron (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-nychthemeron.ogg.
Cite this entry: “nychthemeron.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nychthemeron. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.