sextile

American  

[sek-stil, -stahyl] / ˈsɛk stɪl, -staɪl /

adjective

1. Astronomy. noting or pertaining to the aspect or position of two heavenly bodies when 60° distant from each other.

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noun

1. Astronomy. a sextile position or aspect.

2. Astrology. a sextile position or aspect, conducive to mental stimulation.

3. Statistics. a quantile for the special case of six equal proportions.

sextile British  

/ ˈsɛkstaɪl /

noun

1. statistics one of five actual or notional values of a variable dividing its distribution into six groups with equal frequencies

2. astrology astronomy an aspect or position of 60° between two planets or other celestial bodies

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Etymology

Origin of sextile

1550–60; < Latin sextīlis, equivalent to sext ( us ) sixth + -īlis -ile

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sextile

He will have Sun sextile Jupiter, which gives vision and ideas.

From Time Magazine Archive

First, sluggish Saturn of nature so cold, Being placed in Tauro, my beams do reject, And Luna in Cancro in sextile he behold.

From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 6 by William Carew Hazlitt

And the stars weave the web in their lines of sextile, square and trine, of opposition and conjunction, thus enveloping the monad in the Circle of Necessity.

From The Light of Egypt; or, the science of the soul and the stars — Volume 2 by Thomas H. Burgoyne

The professors of this art recognised five planetary aspects, viz., opposition, conjunction, sextile, square, and trine, each possessing its peculiar kind of influence on events.

From The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' by Thomas Nathaniel Orchard

Could we partake some oblique ray of thine, Salute thee in a sextile, or a trine, It were enough; but thou art flown so high, The telescope is turn'd a common eye.

From Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II by E. K. (Edmund Kerchever) Chambers