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[T]he Tuſcanes have devided the Heaven into 16 parts. The firſt, is from the North to the Sunnes riſing in the Equinoctiall line: the ſecond, to the Meridian line, or the South: the third, to the Sunne ſetting in the Equinoctiall: and the fourth, taketh up all the reſt from the ſaid VVest to the North ſtarre.
The Reliques of many lie like the ruines of Pompeys, in all parts of the earth; And vvhen they arrive at your hands, theſe may ſeem to have vvandred far, vvho in a direct and Meridian Travell, have but few miles of knovvn Earth betvveen your ſelf and the Pole
Used to refer to travel along a terrestrial meridian.
I ſhall not peſter my Account, or the Reader, with Deſcriptions of Places, Journals of our Voyages, Variations of the Compaſs, Latitudes, Meridian-Diſtances, Trade-Winds, Situation of Ports, and the like; […]
At the meridian hour he [Philippikos Bardanes] withdrew to his chamber, intoxicated with flattery and wine, and forgetful that his example had made every ſubject ambitious, and that every ambitious ſubject was his ſecret enemy.
[It may be] that two glasses of alcoholic mixture in the middle of the day shall seem, when imputed to him, to convey a charge of downright inebriety. But the writer has perhaps learned to regard two glasses of meridian wine as but a moderate amount of sustentation.
Daylight came at nine o'clock. At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-color, and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world.
This obvious difference marked the two portions of the empire with a diſtinction of colours, which, though it was in ſome degree concealed during the meridian ſplendor of proſperity, became gradually more viſible, as the ſhades of night deſcended upon the Roman world.
1819, Lord Byron, “Notices of the Life of Lord Byron”, in Thomas Moore, editor, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of His Life,, volume II, London: John Murray,, published 1830, →OCLC, page 214:
A stranger loves the lady of the land, / Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood / Is all meridian, as if never fann'd / By the black wind that chills the polar flood.
Sense 1.1 (“celestial meridian”) is ultimately modelled after Latinmerīdiānalīnea(“meridian line”). Sense 5.2 (“midday rest; siesta”) is modelled after Late Latinmeridiana(“midday; midday rest”), probably short for Latinmerīdiānahōra(“midday time”).
In this Place of Venus the Hour and Amplitude of the Sun's Riſing, for one Half of the Year, are the ſame with thoſe of his Setting in the other Half; which will alſo happen in all Places under the firſt Meridian, where he riſes and ſets: […]
This vvonderful perſon ſtruck Medals, vvhich he diſperſed as Tickets to his ſubſcribers: The device, a Star riſing to the Meridian, vvith this Motto, Ad Summa [To the highest]; and belovv, Inveniam Viam aut faciam [I shall either find a way or make one].
I haue touch'd the higheſt point of all my Greatneſſe, / And from that full Meridian of my Glory, / I haſte novv to my Setting. I ſhall fall / Like a bright exhalation in the Euening, / And no man ſee me more.
Natures that haue much Heat, and great and violent deſires and Perturbations, are not ripe for Action, till they haue paſſed the Meridian of their yeares: As it was with Iulius Cæſar, and Septimius Seuerus.
You ſeem to marvel I do not Marry all this vvhile, conſidering that I am paſt the Meridian of my Age, and that to you Knovvledge there have been overtures made me of Parties above my Degree.
1819, Thomas Moore, “Notices of the Life of Lord Byron”, in Lord Byron, edited by Thomas Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of His Life,, volume I, London: John Murray,, published 1830, →OCLC, page 211:
And here [Missolonghi],—it is impossible not to pause, and send a mournful thought forward to the visit which, fifteen years later, he paid to this same spot,—when, in the full meridian both of his age and fame, he came to lay down his life as the champion of that land, through which he now wandered a stripling and a stranger.
, George Herbert, “The Size”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple: Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green,, →OCLC; reprinted London: Elliot Stock,, 1885, →OCLC, page 132:
Call to mind thy dream, / An earthly globe, / On whoſe meridian was engraven, / Theſe ſeas are tears, and heav'n the haven.
[T]he figure of the very earth, vvhich together vvith the vvater, is by the ſame arguments knovvne to be like a Globe: for ſo doubtleſſe it commeth to paſſe, that vvith us the ſtars about the North pole, never go dovvn; and thoſe contrarivviſe of the Meridian, never riſe.
He acts his vvhole life on this earthly ſtage, / In Child-hood, Youth, Man-hood, Decripit age. / The very day that doth afford him light, / Is Morning, the Meridian, Evening, Night.
"As we have," he said, "in the course of this our toilsome journey, lost our meridian, indulgence shall be given to those of our attendants who shall, from very weariness, be unable to attend the duty at prime, and this by way of misericord or indulgentia."
Footnote * after the word meridian reads: “The hour of repose at noon, which, in the middle ages, was employed in slumber, and which the monastic rules of nocturnal vigils rendered necessary.”
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Diet Rectified in Substance”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy:, 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 2, section 2, member 1, subsection 1, pages 200–201:
Diet, […] comprehends thoſe ſixe non naturall things, vvhich I haue before ſpecified, are eſpeciall cauſes, and being rectified, a ſole or chiefe part of the Cure. […] VVhich hovvſoeuer I treat of, as proper to the Meridian of melancholy, yet neuertheleſſe that vvhich is here ſaid, vvill generally ſerue moſt other diſeaſes, and eaſe them likevviſe, if it be obſerued.
A VVorke not ſmelling of the Lampe, to night, / But fitted for your Maieſties diſport, / And vvrit to the Meridian of your Court, / VVe bring; and hope it may produce delight: […]
a.1677 (date written), Matthew Hale, “The Introduction, Declaring the Reason of the Choice of This Subject, and the Method of the Intended Discourse”, in The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery,, published 1677, →OCLC, section I, page 7:
All other knowledge meerly or principally ſerves the concerns of this Life, and is fitted to the meridian thereof: […]
1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “The Publisher’s Preface”, in John Bull Still in His Senses: Being the Third Part of Law is a Bottomless-Pit., London: John Morphew,, →OCLC, page 5:
I repreſented to him the good Reception the two firſt Parts had met, that tho' they had been calculated by him, only for the Meridian of Grub-ſtreet, yet they were taken notice of by the better ſort; […]
This ſuggeſtion, improbable as it vvas, had the deſired effect upon the captain, being exactly calculated for the meridian of his intellects; […]
1751, [Tobias] Smollett, “The Two Friends Eclipse All Their Competitors in Gallantry, and Practise a Pleasant Project of Revenge upon the Physicians of the Place”, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co.,, →OCLC, page 202, column 2:
[H]is accompliſhments were exactly calculated for the meridian of female taſte; and with certain individuals of that ſex, his muſcular frame, and the robuſt connection of his limbs, were more attractive than the delicate proportions of his companion.
She loves to gossip about the Abbey and Lord Byron, and was soon drawn into a course of anecdotes, though mostly of a humble kind, suited to the meridian of the housekeeper's room and servants' hall.
Plumdamas joined the other two gentlemen in taking their meridian (a bumper-dram of brandy), as they passed the well-known low-browed shop in the Lawn-Market, where they were wont to take that refreshment.
Due to an error, there are two chapters numbered III in this volume; this is the second one.
1889, Frederic Alva Dean, “Description of the Ancient Petoséga”, in The Heroines of Petoséga, New York, N.Y.: Hawthorne Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 10:
Simultaneously with the coming of the mist over earth and sea, where both seem merged into one, slowly and exactly at the same time on each side to the right and left rise and form gorgeous rainbows, that move gently up the sky. They ascend in pairs of the most brilliant color and hue. Upward they move until all the sky is meridianed with bows, which meet in a grand symphony of color in the zenith.
1922 July, “The Eighty-fifth Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America ”, in Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. [...] Part III: The Reports of the Boards and Permanent Committees to the One Hundred and Thirty-fourth General Assembly, Des Moines, Iowa, May 18–25, 1922, volume I (Third Series), Philadelphia, Pa.: Office of the General Assembly,, →OCLC, page 157:
At the foot of the promontory on which stands Peng Lai Temple is the little Christian Church of Water City, a suburb of Teng-chou. In the church are hung these words: "One volume, Old and New Testaments, circling earth, meridianing Heaven. One seven-roomed Worship Hall, backing the sea, facing the City."
[T]reetops stare / Vertiginous and of two minds; and one / Is to let go; // The other, though, / Is to cling on, seeing clear / It is meridianed and centered by / The pure blue, the apple of its eye.
(intransitive) Of a celestial body: to reach its meridian.
At the opposition of 1892 [James Edward] Keeler[…] found, on comparing his drawings meridianed by Marth ephemeris with photographs of a globe made by him from [Giovanni] Schiaparelli's chart and set to the longitude and latitude of the time of observation: […]
1902 October 25, “The Salving of the ‘Senator’”, in William, Robert Chambers, editors, Chambers’s Journal, volume V, number 256 (Sixth Series), London, Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, →OCLC, chapter IV, page 741, column 1:
By the time the moon meridianed, the weather had decidedly improved and the sea had gone down.
1934, Proceedings of the Grand Chapter of Mississippi Order of the Eastern Star: Twenty-eighth Annual Session, Meridian, Miss.: Dement Bros. Print. Co., →OCLC, page 181:
Born in Massachusetts, in 1818, neath the shadow of Bunker Hill, and, incidentally of lineage with Robert Morris of Revolutionary fame, ere his life meridianed removing with his family to beautiful "blue grass Kentucky", the home of his heart, where he wrought well and his memory is revered.
1951, Poems 1951: The Prize-winning Entries for the Festival of Britain, Harmondsworth, Middlesex : Penguin Books, →OCLC, page 231:
The countable ribs meridianed over his blood's tides; / The scar-buttoned archipelago of his flexible spine; […]
to cause an object to reach the meridian or highest point of (something)
of a celestial body: to reach its meridian
Etymology 3
Borrowed from Frenchméridien or GermanMeridian(“pathway on the body along which life force is thought to flow”), from Latinmerīdiānum(“midday; position of the sun at noon; the south”) (see further at etymology 2); the French and German words are calques of Mandarin經/经, 经(jīng, “pathway on the body along which life force is thought to flow; longitude; warp of woven fabric; to go or pass through”).