vertical circle

American  

noun

Astronomy.

1. a great circle on the celestial sphere passing through the zenith.

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vertical circle British  

noun

1. astronomy a great circle on the celestial sphere passing through the zenith and perpendicular to the horizon

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vertical circle Scientific  

1. A great circle on the celestial sphere that passes through the zenith and the nadir and thus is perpendicular to the horizon.

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Etymology

Origin of vertical circle

First recorded in 1550–60

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

vertical circle

The flagman swings his lamp, or his flag or hand, in a vertical circle at half-arm's length across the track.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then, with hands clasping each other's feet, they became a vertical circle like the wheel of fortune, and thus went round and round.

From The Goddess of Atvatabar Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of Atvatabar by William Richard Bradshaw

Rhumb, rumb, or rum, n. any vertical circle, hence any point of the compass.—ns.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various

An apparent change in the position of an object, arising from a change of the observer's station, and which diminishes with the altitude of an object in the vertical circle.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher

A vertical circle passing through the sun may also be seen.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 8 "Haller, Albrecht" to "Harmonium" by Various