sidereal

Definition

Of or relating to the stars.

Etymology

From Latin sīdereus + -al (cf. Latin sīderālis), from sīdus (“star, constellation”), of unknown ultimate origin, likely a substrate language such as Pre-Greek.

Example Sentences

• "These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through smoke and thousandfold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Boötes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire?"
• "The field of sidereal astronomy, therefore, was virtually untrodden when, shortly after the beginning of his telescopic work, Herschel began his first review of the heavens."
• "Then, from a sufficient number of observations of synodic periods to give their mean, we obtain the sidereal period, or period with reference to the stars."

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