noun
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astronomy the point on the celestial sphere vertically above an observer
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the highest point; peak; acme
the zenith of someone's achievements
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The point on the celestial sphere that is directly above the observer (90 degrees above the celestial horizon).
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Compare nadir
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of zenith
1350–1400; Middle English cenith < Medieval Latin < Old Spanish zenit, scribal error for zemt < Arabic samt road, incorrectly read as senit by medieval scribes (compare Arabic samt ar-rās road above (over) one's head, the opposite of nadir )
Explanation
Zenith means the high point — it comes from astronomy, where it describes the highest point in an arc traveled by a star or a planet or another celestial body. The sun reaches its zenith when it is as high in the sky as it is going to go on that day. Zenith — and its opposite, nadir — have been appropriated by non-astronomers and are used to describe high and low points in non-astronomical contexts. For example, you can say that the high school quarterback hit his zenith in high school, and it was all downhill from there. Do yourself a favor and try to delay your zenith so you'll have something to look forward to in your future!
Vocabulary lists containing zenith
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Celestial Words To Mark The Winter Solstice
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The Alchemist
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They observe that even at the zenith of the dotcom bubble in 2000, eurozone stocks were only at 30 times by comparison.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 29, 2026
The phrasing hit its zenith in the second half of 2025, with AlphaSense logging 73 documents with such sentence structure in the final quarter, or more than once a business day.
From Barron's ● Apr. 14, 2026
Klosterman believes right now is likely the zenith.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026
That reputation had reached its zenith by late 2024, when the firm was drawing takeover interest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026
The trees rise straight up to zenith; there is no horizon.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
The sweater’s the color of outfits his forefathers donned, in 1983, doing standup at and near their zeniths.
From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2022
Somebody with a much bigger degree than I’ll ever get might look back and do an analysis of periods of history when horror movies have had their zeniths.
From New York Times ● Oct. 26, 2018
Will James has had his zeniths and his nadirs.
From Time Magazine Archive
Producer Carroll's tenth durbar is not a perpetual triumph, but it reaches zeniths of one sort and another.
From Time Magazine Archive
"All this rigmarole about azimuths and amplitudes and zeniths and moons and influence and tides, it's just invented to plague the life out of honest, seafaring folk."
From Dry Fish and Wet Tales from a Norwegian Seaport by Anthon Bernhard Elias Nilsen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
