northern hemisphere
8
2.9
- noun
- /ˈnɔrðərn ˈhɛmɪsfɪr/
:
hemisferio norte
- The sun is at its greatest angle below the celestial equator during our northern hemisphere winter.
Examples
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This is the northern hemisphere, correct?
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We can say with equal certainty that there are no dogs in the northern hemisphere.
Fiction book (1998) -
It's somewhere in the far northern hemisphere though.
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I must have the worst luck in the northern hemisphere.
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"A new dust storm has started, this time in the northern hemisphere."
Fiction book (1999) -
We have crash landed somewhere in the northern hemisphere.
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It's finally seeped down to him that most of the oil in the world comes from the northern hemisphere.
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In the northern hemisphere, precipitation continues to decline until almost 45 degrees N.
Academic text (1992) -
Aurora borealis can be found in the northern hemisphere in Alaska, Canada, and Scandinavia.
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Spring now comes a week earlier across the northern hemisphere than it did 30 years ago.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the half of the Earth that lies north of the equator' is directly derivable from combining 'northern' (pertaining to the north) with 'hemisphere' (a half of the Earth). This adjective + noun compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows ordinary English semantics, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it.
Etymology
Northern hemisphere shows a simple image: imagine the Earth as a globe with an invisible line around the middle, and the top half is the northern hemisphere. So it means 'the half of the Earth north of the equator'.