The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cardinal \Car"di*nal\, a. [L. cardinalis, fr. cardo the hinge of a door, that on which a thing turns or depends: cf. F. cardinal.] Of fundamental importance; pre["e]minent; superior; chief; principal. The cardinal intersections of the zodiac. --Sir T. Browne. Impudence is now a cardinal virtue. --Drayton. But cardinal sins, and hollow hearts, I fear ye. --Shak. Cardinal numbers, the numbers one, two, three, etc., in distinction from first, second, third, etc., which are called ordinal numbers. Cardinal points
(Geol.) The four principal points of the compass, or intersections of the horizon with the meridian and the prime vertical circle, north, south east, and west.
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(Astrol.) The rising and setting of the sun, the zenith and nadir.
Cardinal signs (Astron.) Aries, Libra, Cancer, and Capricorn.
Cardinal teeth (Zo["o]l.), the central teeth of bivalve shell. See Bivalve.
Cardinal veins (Anat.), the veins in vertebrate embryos, which run each side of the vertebral column and returm the blood to the heart. They remain through life in some fishes.
Cardinal virtues, pre["e]minent virtues; among the ancients, prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.
Cardinal winds, winds which blow from the cardinal points due north, south, east, or west.
Wiktionary
n. (cardinal point English)
Wikipedia
Cardinal Points is a student newspaper published in Plattsburgh, New York, that serves the SUNY Plattsburgh community. The newspaper publishes 3,000 copies every Friday morning throughout the semester, from February until May 12. It is distributed throughout the PSUC campus and greater Plattsburgh area and is also available in online format.
Usage examples of "cardinal points".
The cardinal points are four, and the seasons, the elements, and heat, cold, wet, and dry.
Here we have, too, the four quarters of Atlantis, divided by its four rivers, as we shall see a little farther on, represented in a dance, where the dancers arrange themselves according to the four cardinal points of the compass.
One cannot help noticing that rather more than half of the lines run north-south in the Nemzes and Bukarahast directions while the others go west-east in search from Maliziies with Bulgarad for, tiny tot though it looks when schtschupnistling alongside other incunabula,it has its cardinal points for all that.
The four great buildings rising over the gates at the cardinal points of the compass had enormous steep rooves, two and three stories high, with balconies and lace-curtained dormers, currently all shut up against the cold—.
When all the cardinal points had proved equally dangerous, the rat crouched low and motionless except for huffing sides and anxiously blinking eyes.
Ursula stood next to the casket at the center of the circle she had scrawled, her staff held upright in one hand, with the four monks standing like guardian statues at the cardinal points.
What would have prevented Bacon or Postel, or even Foucault-who must have been a Templar himself, seeing all the fuss he made over the Pendulum-from just putting a map of the world on the floor and orienting it by the cardinal points?
He took seven steps in the direction of the seven cardinal points, and thus took possession of the world.
Where once every tower station at the cardinal points had two functioning towers, now only the south and west stations have two towers.