Word.ws English Dictionary

phasis

phasis noun: a phase (of the moon, a planet etc.).

Noun

phasis (plural phases)

  1. (obsolete) A phase (of the moon, a planet etc.).
    • [A]s the same face of the moon always is turned to the earth, the lunar tides must be permanent, and if the solid parts of the moon be spherical, must always cover the phasis next to us.1791, Erasmus Darwin, The Economy of Vegetation, J. Johnson, page 119
  2. (obsolete) Any phase or aspect of something.
    • He o'er the seas shall love or fame pursue, / And other Months, another Phasis view […].1697, Marcus Manilius, translated by Thomas Creech, Astronomica
    • In popular language Feeling is not always synonymous with State of Consciousness; being often taken more peculiarly for those states which are conceived as belonging to the sensitive, or to the emotional, phasis of our nature […].1882, John Stuart Mill, A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive, 8th edition
  3. (archaic) The first appearance of the new moon.

Proper noun capitalized: Phasis

the Phasis

  1. The Rioni river, as it is called in classical sources.
    • Poti.* A fortified harbour at the mouth of the river Rion, the ancient Phasis, on the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea. The town is composed of a collection of wooden houses surrounded by a forest.1868, “Route 20: London to Tiflis […] ”, in Handbook for Travellers in Russia, Poland, and Finland, 2nd edition, London: John Murray, page 320

Forms of phasis

pluralphases

Origin of phasis

From Late Latin phasis, or its source, Ancient Greek φάσις (phásis, “appearance”).

From Ancient Greek Φᾶσις (Phâsis).

Questions about phasis

What does phasis mean?
Phasis means a phase (of the moon, a planet etc.).
What part of speech is phasis?
Phasis can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of phasis?
The plural of phasis is phases.

Words near phasis in the dictionary

  1. phasing out
  2. phasings
  3. phasins
  4. phasirna
  5. phasirnas
  6. phasis
  7. phasitron
  8. phasitrons
  9. phasivirus
  10. phasiviruses
  11. phasm

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phasis (page history and authors); Phasis (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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Cite this entry: “phasis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phasis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.