selenelion
selenelion noun: a lunar eclipse occurring as the Moon sets, simultaneously with sunrise.
Noun
selenelion (plural selenelions)
- A lunar eclipse occurring as the Moon sets, simultaneously with sunrise.
- This phenomenon is called a "horizontal eclipse" or, from a French term, "selenelion." ... In modern times, the first record seems to date from 1590, when the great astronomer Tycho Brahe saw a selenelion from his observatory ....2001, Paul Davies, Duncan Steel, Eclipse: The Celestial Phenomenon That Changed the Course of History (Joseph Henry Press) p. 57
- This he immediately published, under the title Selenelion ou Apparition Luni-Solaire .... The coinage ‘selenelion’ was his own .... Payen asserted that refraction on its own could not account for a selenelion...2007, William Poole, "Antoine-François Payen, the 1666 Selenelion, and a Rediscovered Letter to Robert Hooke", Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Sep. 22, 2007), pp....
- Synonyms:
- horizontal eclipse
Examples of selenelion in a sentence
- I decided to watch for an uncommon eclipse phenomenon known as selenelion, seeing the Sun near the horizon and the eclipsed Moon near the opposite horizon at the same time.2010 June 26, Kelly Beatty, “In Search of Selenelion”, in Sky & Telescope:
- The little-used name for this effect is called a "selenelion," a phenomenon that celestial geometry says cannot happen.2014, Joe Rao, Total Lunar Eclipse On Wednesday Will Be a Rare 'Selenelion':
- Meteorologist Joe Rao points out that this eclipse presents an unusual chance to try seeing a selenelion: when the Sun and eclipsed Moon are both above the horizon at once.2014 October, Alan MacRobert, “Eclipse of a Large Moon”, in Sky & Telescope, page 52:
Synonyms of selenelion
- horizontal eclipse
Forms of selenelion
| plural | selenelions |
|---|---|
| alternative form | selenehelion |
Origin of selenelion
French coinage, from the Ancient Greek σελήνη (selḗnē, “moon”) and ἥλιος (hḗlios, “sun”).
Questions about selenelion
- What does selenelion mean?
- Selenelion means a lunar eclipse occurring as the Moon sets, simultaneously with sunrise.
- How do you use selenelion in a sentence?
- I decided to watch for an uncommon eclipse phenomenon known as selenelion, seeing the Sun near the horizon and the eclipsed Moon near the opposite horizon at the same time.
- What part of speech is selenelion?
- Selenelion is a noun.
- What is the plural of selenelion?
- The plural of selenelion is selenelions.
Words near selenelion in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: selenelion (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: “selenelion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/selenelion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.