Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to Meton, an ancient Athenian astronomer.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Pertaining to, or discovered by, Meton, the Athenian.
- adjective (Astron.) See under
Cycle .
Etymologies
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Examples
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It was at this point the Chinese abandoned the metonic cycle, or an arithmetical rule, to follow the actual movement of the moon with all its eccentricities.
Archive 2007-02-01 2007
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It was at this point the Chinese abandoned the metonic cycle, or an arithmetical rule, to follow the actual movement of the moon with all its eccentricities.
she commented on the word metonic
The Metonic cycle is a cycle of 19 tropical years – conventionally equated to 235 synodic months – in which the moon returns to almost the same apparent position relative to the sun, so that new and full moons occur at the same dates in the corresponding year of each cycle.
It was widely adopted in eastern lunisolar calendars, and was the basis of the early Christian calculation of the date of Easter.
September 5, 2008