observer's meridian
- noun
- Specialized
:
meridiano del observador
- At noon, the sun crosses the observer's meridian, marking local apparent noon.
Examples
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The observer's meridian is crucial for accurate celestial navigation.
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The observer's meridian is crucial for determining the precise position of celestial objects in the sky.
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Navigators use the observer's meridian as a reference for calculating latitude and longitude.
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At the observatory, we calculated the observer's meridian for the star chart.
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At noon, the sun crosses the observer's meridian, marking local apparent noon.
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Navigators use the observer's meridian as a reference for calculating latitude and longitude.
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The observer's meridian is essential for determining the precise position of celestial objects in astronomy.
Synonyms
3
6.7
An imaginary line from the North Pole to the South Pole that shows position east or west
An imaginary line on Earth's surface joining the North and South Poles that shows longitude
An imaginary north-south line through both poles showing location east or west
Surface Forms
Morphology
observer's + meridian
The phrase is a straightforward possessive construction: 'observer's' (the observer's location) + 'meridian' (a line of longitude), so the meaning — the meridian passing through a particular observer — is directly derivable from the parts. This possessive + noun composition is cross-linguistically common and follows regular English grammar, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Observer's meridian comes from a simple picture: imagine a straight north-south line in the sky that goes through the exact point above you, linking the observer and the meridian. When the sun crosses this line at 'local noon', people used it to tell time and find their place on Earth, so today the term means the north-south line that matches where the observer stands.