meridional, a. and n.
(məˈrɪdɪənəl)
Also meridianal.
[a. F. méridional, ad. late L. merīdiōnāl-is, irreg. f. merīdiēs mid-day, south: see meridian a.]
A. adj.
1. Of or belonging to the south; situated in the south: southern, southerly.
| c 1400 Mandeville (1839) xiv. 156 The Est partie & the Meridionalle partie. c 1520 Barclay Jugurth (1557) 49 b, The meridyonall parte of the countrey. 1549 Compl. Scot. vi. 48 The pole antartic austral or meridional. 1653 R. Sanders Physiogn. 169 The Meridional people are, for the most part, black and curled. 1703 T. N. City & C. Purchaser 36 Kitchins..ought to be placed in the Meridional part of the Building. 1830 Fraser's Mag. I. 594 We must not forget that Adosinda and Roderick are meridional Europeans. 1880 Haughton Phys. Geog. v. 208 The Meridional Chain..extends along the Western Coast. |
| absol. 1604 E. G[rimstone] D'Acosta's Hist. Indies iii. ii. 120 The meridionall (which they of the Ocean call South, and those of the Mediterranean sea, Mezo giorno) commonly is raynie and boisterous. |
b. Pertaining to or characteristic of the inhabitants of the south (of Europe).
| 1847 Blackw. Mag. LXII. 418 His voice..retained..‘a slight meridional accent’. 1860 Motley Netherl. v. I. 138 A dark, meridional physiognomy..such was the Prince of Parma. 1905 Q. Rev. July 11 That there is such a thing as Latin rhetoric, which corresponds now, as in every preceding age, to the temperament best summed up in the word ‘meridional’. |
† 2. Pertaining to the noontide position of the sun.
meridional line = meridian n. 4.
Obs.| c 1386 Chaucer Sqr.'s T. 255 Phebus hath laft the Angle meridional. c 1391 ― Astrol. ii. §3 Whan þat þe sonne is ney the Meridional lyne. 1432–50 tr. Higden (Rolls) VII. 75 The sonne beynge in the centre meridionalle. 1608 Willet Hexapla Exod. 245 The sun ascendeth vnto the meridianall [sic] point. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. I. 590 Mr. Ellicott drew a true meridional line by celestial observation. 1834 Nat. Philos. III. Astron. i. 15 (Usef. Knowl. Soc.), They are called meridians, or meridional lines, and the equator bisects all the meridians. |
3. Pertaining to or characteristic of noonday; chiefly
fig. Now
rare or
Obs.| 1624 Donne Serm. xix. (1640) 192 Meridionall brightnesse, the glorious noon, and heighth, is to be a Christian. 1673 Lady's Call. i. v. §39 Are God's safeguards to be only meridional, to shine out only with the noon-day sun? 1762 tr. Busching's Syst. Geog. III. 273 So large were the demesnes of this abbey, when in its meridional glory. 1839 Fraser's Mag. XIX. 469 All my troubles, cares, anxieties, perplexities—matutinal, meridional, and vespertinal. |
4. Of or pertaining to, aligned with, a meridian.
| 1555 Eden Decades 247 We..sayled from thense .lxxxx. degrees in lengthe meridionale. 1669 Sturmy Mariner's Mag. iv. vii. 166 This Table of Latitudes, or Meridional Parts. 1709 Berkeley Th. Vision §74 When the moon is viewed..in the meridional position. 1812 Woodhouse Astron. vii. 47 The meridional altitudes of heavenly bodies. 1882 Proctor in Knowledge No. 19. 399/2 Stars whose places were already determined by the use of their great meridional instrument. 1900 Geogr. Jrnl. XV. 540 The great meridianal systems, e.g. the Urals and the Rocky mountains. 1936 Discovery Mar. 69/2 The endeavour of the continents themselves to rotate is generally in a different direction from that of the poles of the earth, so setting up meridianal directed forces acting westward. |
b. Applied to designate markings on a roundish body that lie in a plane with its axis.
Cf. meridian n. 4 c.
| 1658 Sir T. Browne Gard. Cyrus iv. Hydriot. etc. 62 In the circinations and sphærical rounds of Onyons,..the circles of the Orbes are ofttimes larger, and the meridional lines stand wider upon one side then the other. 1881 Carpenter Microsc. & Rev. §427 (ed. 6) 507 Along one side of this body is a meridional groove, resembling that of a peach. 1893 Tuckey Amphioxus 46 This [furrow] is likewise a meridional one, and is at right angles to the first. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VI. 209 Those [anastomoses] between the anterior and the posterior interventricular branch near the apex of the heart, forming a vertical or meridional circle. |
B. n. An inhabitant of the south; now
spec. an inhabitant of the south of France.
| 1591 Sylvester Du Bartas i. iii. 209 The Sea..flows again; and then again it falls When she doth light th' other Meridionals. 1621 Molle Camerar. Liv. Libr. iii. xiii. 189 The Meridionalls or Southern inhabitants. 1675 G. R. tr. Le Grand's Man without Passion 165 The Meridionals who banish formal courts and reveling from their assemblies, despise not gay cloathing. 1898 Bodley France iii. ii. 126 The hero of the trial was..a characteristic Meridional. 1899 Miss V. M. Crawford Stud. For. Lit. 50 Daudet was able to paint a real sober picture of the Meridional in Numa Roumestan. |