ZENITH • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Zenith

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/zˈinəθ/ /zˈinɪθ/ Listen

noun

Zenith n.

1.

That point in the visible celestial hemisphere which is vertical to the spectator; the point of the heavens directly overhead; opposed to nadir. "From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star."

2.

Hence, figuratively, the point of culmination; the greatest height; the height of success or prosperity. "I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star." "This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars." "It was during those civil troubles... this aspiring family reached the zenith."

Zenith distance. (Astron.) See under Distance.

Zenith sector. (Astron.) See Sector, 3.

Zenith telescope (Geodesy), a telescope specially designed for determining the latitude by means of any two stars which pass the meridian about the same time, and at nearly equal distances from the zenith, but on opposite sides of it. It turns both on a vertical and a horizontal axis, is provided with a graduated vertical semicircle, and a level for setting it to a given zenith distance, and with a micrometer for measuring the difference of the zenith distances of the two stars.

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Etymology of 'Zenith'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Zenith" Quotes from Famous Books

... Living on a table-land, you experience no sensation of height. For the intoxicating delights of elevation you require a solitary pinnacle, some lonely eminence. Aut Caesar, aut nullus; whether in the zenith or the ...

— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... boards of which are such names as Berkeley, Swift, Grattan, Flood, and Burke, but it will be admitted by all that as far as the fame of her alumni is concerned—and there is no other test for a collegiate foundation—Trinity reached the zenith of her greatness during the years in which a free Parliament served to break down the barriers of religion in the island. With the passing of that phase of political history she relapsed into her place as the "silent sister" in the country, but not of it, taking no part in national life ...

— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... remains with me; I watched it for an hour or more from the terrace-road of the island town. An exquisite after-glow seemed as if it would never pass away. Above thin, grey clouds stretching along the horizon a purple flush melted insensibly into the dark blue of the zenith. Eastward the sky was piled with lurid rack, sullen-tinted folds edged with the hue of sulphur. The sea had a strange aspect, curved tracts of pale blue lying motionless upon a dark expanse rippled by the wind. ...

— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... of the Dry, and half part of the Wet: dusty blue to the south-east, and dark banks of clouds to the north-west, with a fierce beating sun at the zenith. Already the air was oppressive with electric disturbances, and Dan, fearing he would not get finished unless things were kept humming, went out-bush next morning, and the homestead became once more the hub of our universe—the ...

— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... go as suddenly as though she had struck him. The cold white light of the tropical dawn had crept past the zenith now and the expanse of the shallow waters looked cold, too, without stir or ripple within the enormous rim of the horizon where, to the west, a shadow ...

— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

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