The Collaborative International Dictionary
Tropic \Trop"ic\, n. [F. tropique, L. tropicus of or belonging to a turn, i. e., of the sun, Gr. ? of the solstice, ? (sc. ?) the tropic or solstice, fr. ? to turn. See Trope.]
(Astron.) One of the two small circles of the celestial sphere, situated on each side of the equator, at a distance of 23[deg] 28[min], and parallel to it, which the sun just reaches at its greatest declination north or south, and from which it turns again toward the equator, the northern circle being called the Tropic of Cancer, and the southern the Tropic of Capricorn, from the names of the two signs at which they touch the ecliptic.
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(Geog.)
One of the two parallels of terrestrial latitude corresponding to the celestial tropics, and called by the same names.
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pl. The region lying between these parallels of latitude, or near them on either side.
The brilliant flowers of the tropics bloom from the windows of the greenhouse and the saloon.
--Bancroft.
Wikipedia
The Tropic of Capricorn (or the Southern Tropic) is the circle of latitude that contains the subsolar point on the December (or southern) solstice. It is thus the southernmost latitude where the Sun can be directly overhead. Its northern equivalent is the Tropic of Cancer.
The Tropic of Capricorn is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. As of , its latitude is south of the equator, but it is very gradually moving northward, currently at the rate of 0.47 arcseconds, or 15 metres, per year.
Tropic of Capricorn is a semi-autobiographical novel by Henry Miller, first published in Paris in 1938. The novel was banned in the United States until a 1961 Justice Department ruling declared that its contents were not obscene. It was also banned in Turkey. It is a prequel to Miller's 1934 work, the Tropic of Cancer.
The novel is set in 1920s New York, where the narrator 'Henry V. Miller' works in the personnel division of the 'Cosmodemonic' telegraph company. Although the narrator's experiences closely parallel Miller's own time in New York working for the Western Union Telegraph Company, and though he shares the author's name, the novel is considered a work of fiction.
Much of the story surrounds his New York years of struggle with his first wife Beatrice, before meeting, and eventually marrying, June (aka Mara). The first volume of his Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, Sexus, begins where he leaves off and describes the process of finding his voice as a writer, until eventually, at the end of the last volume, Nexus, he sets off for Paris (described in Tropic of Cancer, which was actually written first).
Tropic of Capricorn is a BBC television documentary series. It was aired on BBC Two in 2008 and showed presenter Simon Reeve travelling along the Tropic of Capricorn.
The Tropic of Capricorn is the most southerly circle of latitude of the Earth's tropics region.
Tropic of Capricorn may also refer to:
- Tropic of Capricorn (novel), Henry Miller novel
- Tropic of Capricorn (TV series), BBC TV series
Usage examples of "tropic of capricorn".
We had crossed the tropic of Capricorn, and the Straits of Magellan opened less than seven hundred miles to the south.
It was not until a little before the Surprise crossed the tropic of Capricorn that the trade wind had really started to blow, but since then, close-hauled or with the wind one point free, she had been showing what she could really do, with topgallants over reefed topsails and a glorious series of jibs and staysails, white and sometimes green water sweeping over her weather-bow, the little girls, soaked through and through and shrieking with delight, her lively deck at an angle that made it impossible to fix a bird in one's glass unless one were lashed to a solid support, when one .
The river, the biggest in Africa south of the Tropic of Capricorn, forms a vast muddy estuary, the mouth stopped up by innumerable sandbars.
The sun was entering the Tropic of Capricorn, and gave the longest days in the year.
He answered the prayers in 297 by moving swiftly forward only a comparatively Small Amount and lying Mainly in the Pacific Ocean, stretching almost as far south as what is now the Antarter, what was then the Tropic of Capricorn, and what had previously been the Equator.
For in the specified area there were the dotted outlines of reefs and other irregular shapes: islands or islets, and a legend identifying them as Heron Island and the Bunker and Capricorn groups, the latter because they lay on or close to the Tropic of Capricorn.
And on high days, as when they saluted the tropic of Capricorn with a double broadside, it was a pleasure to see their spirit: they demolished a raft of empty beef barrels at something over five hundred yards and ran their guns up again, cheering madly, to blast the scattered remains in a trifle less than two minutes.
At this point Jack knew perfectly well that the dear Surprise was about to cross the tropic of Capricorn.
It was a world full of labels: Atlantic Ocean and Amazon and Tropic of Capricorn.
So what JAL Flight 411 holds is merely his physical self, his shell, occupying a costly private cubicle on a slender 200-passenger vessel which, leaving Buenos Aires shortly after breakfast, has sliced westward along the Tropic of Capricorn for a couple of hours and will soon be landing at Papua's Torres Skyport.