lunar eclipse
5
3.6
- noun
- /ˈluːnər ɪˈklɪps/
- Specialized
:
eclipse lunar
- A total lunar eclipse... occurs once every 18 years in the same place... and we can see one tonight.
- a total lunar eclipse
- Lunar eclipse occurs
And then that night was a total lunar eclipse.
- And then that night was a total lunar eclipse.
- Because lunar eclipses, OK, where Earth's shadow is cast onto the full moon, always made a curved shadow, OK.
Examples
-
Westerners shouldn't fret, however—they will see totality at the next lunar eclipse on August 28.
Academic text (2007) -
The babysitting job also happens to line up with a rare lunar eclipse, which has the whole college town buzzing.
Blog text (9) -
I wonder what a lunar eclipse would be like on the moon.
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Last Tuesday, which was also the night of the total lunar eclipse.
-
Saturday night was a lunar eclipse
-
The lunar eclipse is tonight.
-
Yeah, it's gonna be 72 and clear tonight, a great night to see that total lunar eclipse.
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Columbus: My book of charts told me there would be a lunar eclipse tonight.
Fiction book (1998) -
Lunar eclipses have fascinated mankind throughout the ages.
-
The lunar eclipse caused the moon to appear a striking shade of red.
Synonyms
87
5.2
A time when one object, like the Moon, moves into another object's shadow and is hidden
How Dark
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from 'lunar' (relating to the moon) combined with 'eclipse' (an obscuring of one body by another); together they straightforwardly denote an obscuring event involving the moon. This adjective+noun composition is regular and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand the MWE.
Etymology
Lunar eclipse comes from a simple sky picture: the Earth moves between the sun and the moon, so the moon falls into the Earth's 'shadow' and can look dark or 'red'. That's why a lunar eclipse means the time when the moon is darkened because it is in Earth's 'shadow'.