æquator

See also: aequator and Æquator

English

Noun

æquator (plural æquators)

1. Obsolete spelling of equator
   • 1638, Sir Thomas Herbert, Some years travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique:

     The ninth of Aprill wee croſt the Tropick of Cancer, of like diſtance from the Æquator...

   • 1767, Richard Helsham, Bryan Robinson, A Course of Lectures in Natural Philosophy, page 31:

     For all parts of the earth’s ſurface with the bodies thereto adjacent revolve in the ſame time either in the æquator or in circles parallel thereto; but the æquator is the largeſt of all thoſe circles, and the others grow leſs and leſs as they are more and more diſtant from the æquator.

   • 1835, James Ashburner Campbell and Simon Wilkin of East Sussex, Sir Thomas Browne’s Works: Including His Life and Correspondence, page 78:

     ^{1} Every day is an emblem of the yeare; and therein the sun hath his declination, or distance from the meridian, as from the æquator, his solstice in itt, as in the tropicks; and his different altitudes azimuths every moment. — Wr.

     ^{2} ‛T is seemingly strange, but most true, that they who lye betweene the æquator and the tropic, have a hotter summer than they that lye under the æquator; suppose under 12 degrees north or south : bycause with them sommer is twice doubled in 3 months : having the sonn twice over their heads in that space : whereas they under the æquator have him twice, but in 6 months distance, and 2 winters between. For the distance of the son from the center in his auge at summer is 1210 semidiameters of the earth : but his nearest distance is never above 1122, every semidiameter containing 7159¼ of our miles. — Wr.

   • 1856, Increase Mather, George Offor, Remarkable Providences Illustrative of the Earlier Days of American Colonisation, page 74:

     On the other side of the Azores, and this side of the æquator, the north point of the needle wheeleth to the west; so that in the lat. 36, near the shore, the variation is about 11 gr., but on the other side of the æquator, it is quite otherwise, for in Brasilia the south point varies 12 gr. unto the west, but elongating from the coast of Brasilia toward the shore of Africa it varies eastward, and arriving at the Cape De las Aguillas, it rests in the meridian and looketh neither way.