A WORD A DAY.

Southland Times, Issue 21220, 22 October 1930, Page 6

A WORD A DAY.

SOLSTICE. We accept June 22 as the date of the winter solstice and December 22 as the summer solstice. These dates have been agreed upon as the approximate times at which the sun is at its farthest point - from the equator, north or south. In the Northern Hemisphere the dates of the summer and winter solstics are reversed. The word as we have it retains the French spelling, but reverts to the Latin derivation. Solstitium comes from sol, the sun, and sistere, to cause to stand, from stare, to stand; quite obviously emphasizing the supposition that at these times the suu stood still in its northward and southward course.

The points midway between the equinoxes, being the first point in the sign Cancer and the first point in the sign Capricornus, as well as the times are called solstices. In an sense the word solstice is frequently used to suggest any culminating point or the furthest point, hence an epoch, in the first case, and the limit, in the second. In sol-stice one stresses the first syllable. Sound the o as in. odd, i as in till, cc as s. “We approach the time of the summer solstice.”