- 1春分／秋分（晝夜差不多一樣長的那兩天）
An equinox is one of two moments in the year when day and night last about the same length — roughly twelve hours each. There is a spring one (around 21 March) and an autumn one (around 23 September). After the March equinox, days start winning in the northern half of the world; after the September one, nights start winning. People like to say day and night are exactly equal then, though actually the true crossing is a moment, not a whole calendar day, and sunrise and sunset are a little messy to measure, so the two lengths are only about the same. Do not mix this with a , which is when the day is longest or shortest. The name is Latin for “equal night.” We use the word in science class, in farming calendars, and in talk about seasons; it is a little formal, but not rare.
組成Latin aequus (equal) + nox (night), from aequinoctium: “equal night.” English took it through French and Medieval Latin. The night piece goes back to an old Indo-European word for night.
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
equinoxnoun/ˈɛkwɪnɒks/
- 1
One of two times in the year (one in March and the other in September) when the length of the day and the night are equal, which occurs when the sun is directly overhead at the equator; this marks the beginning of spring in one hemisphere and autumn in the other.
- [T]he Months of March and September, the tvvo Æquinoxes of Our year, are the moſt vvindy and tempeſtuous, the moſt unſettled and unequable of Seaſons in moſt Countries of the VVorld.
- The four grand and ſolemn Bardic days are, of ancient uſage, the tvvo equinoxes, and the tvvo ſolſtices; the nevv and full moons are alſo, ſubordinately, ſolemn Bardic days: […]
- 2
The circumstance of a twenty-four hour time period having the day and night of equal length.
- [D]oe but ſee his vice, / Tis to his vertue, a iuſt equinox, / The one as long as th'other: […]
- 3
astronomynatural-sciencesOne of the two points in space where the apparent path of the Sun intersects with the equatorial plane of the Earth.
- 4
obsoleterareA gale (“very strong wind”) once thought to occur more frequently around the time of an equinox (sense 1), now known to be a misconception; an equinoctial gale.
- The paſſage yet vvas good, the vvind, 'tis true, / VVas ſomevvhat high, but that vvas nothing nevv, / Nor more than uſual Equinoxes blevv.
- The Equinox drove the sand into their faces or round their legs, as they dived among the sheep-haunted hollows.
- 5
obsoleteastronomynatural-sciencesA celestial equator (“great circle on the celestial sphere, coincident with the plane of the Earth's equator (the equatorial plane)”); also, the Earth's equator.
- [T]hey [seals] are over all the American Coaſt of the South Seas, from Terra del Fuego, up to the Equinoctial Line: but to the North of the Equinox again, in theſe Sea, I never ſavv any, till as far as 21 North Lat[itude].
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。