terraqueous

English

Etymology

From Latin terra- +‎ aqueous.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /təˈɹeɪkwiəs/

• Audio (Southern England)

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Adjective

terraqueous (not comparable)

1. Consisting of or involving earth and water.
   • 1829, Andrew Ure, A New System of Geology, in Which the Great Revolutions of the Earth and Animated Nature, are Reconciled at Once to Modern Science and Sacred History‎^[1], London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, Book II, Chapter V, p. 341:

     Thus the vicissitudes of the land and ocean, portrayed in the tertiary formations, harmonise perfectly with other terraqueous phenomena of the same geological period.

   • 1884, John Addington Symonds "Stella Maris," sonnet LIV in Vagabunduli Libellus, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., p. 64, [2]

     Spirit of light and darkness! I no less
     Twy-natured, but of more terraqueous mould,
     In whom conflicting powers proportion hold
     With poise exact, before thy proud excess
     Of beauty perfect and pure lawlessness
     Quail self-confounded; neither nobly bold
     To dare for thee damnation, nor so cold
     As to endure unscathed thy fiery stress.

   • 1892, Thomas Hardy, chapter XLIII, in Tess of the d'Urbervilles‎^[3]:

     […] strange birds from behind the North Pole began to arrive silently on the upland of Flintcomb-Ash; gaunt spectral creatures with tragical eyes—eyes which had witnessed scenes of cataclysmal horror in inaccessible polar regions of a magnitude such as no human being had ever conceived, in curdling temperatures that no man could endure; which had beheld the crash of icebergs and the slide of snow-hills by the shooting light of the Aurora; been half blinded by the whirl of colossal storms and terraqueous distortions; and retained the expression of feature that such scenes had engendered.

   • 1951 August, S. G. E. Lythe, “The Dundee & Newtyle Railway: I—Promotion and Management, 1825–1846”, in Railway Magazine, pages 546-547:

     So, despite the obvious difficulties of crossing the intervening Sidlaws, correspondents to the Dundee newspapers in 1817 were advocating a "terraqueous undertaking" in the form of a canal from the town into Strathmore.

   • 1975, Miguel Ángel Asturias, translated by Gerald Martin, Men of Maize, Delacorte, page 138:

     When the projectile fell in the mortar with the end of the fuse left outside like a rat's tail, others, more experienced, put the brand to it and ... boom ... boom ... boom ... violent terraqueous explosions, followed by booming detonations high up in a vast sky now full of stars.

2. Of a heavenly body, comprising both land and water, like the Earth.
   • 1669, John Nievhoff, translated by John Ogilby, An Embassy from the Eaſt-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China‎^[4], London: John Macock, →OCLC, page 3:

     The Terraqueous Globe comprehending Sea and Land, Rivers and Lakes, ſtands divided by modern Geographers into two Semi-Orbs, viz. the Old, and New World.

   • 1885, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, “Of the Famous Adventure of the Enchanted Bark”, in John Ormsby, transl., The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha […] In Four Vols, volume III, London: Smith, Elder & Co. […], →OCLC, part II, page 320:

     'And when we come to that lane^{[sic – meaning line]} your worship speaks of,' said Sancho, 'how far shall we have gone?'
     'Very far,' said Don Quixote, 'for of the three hundred and sixty degrees that this terraqueous globe contains, as computed by Ptolemy, the greatest cosmographer known, we shall have travelled one-half when we come to the line I spoke of.'

Translations

comprising land and water

• Dutch: aardwaterig
• French: terraqué (fr)
• Italian: terracqueo (it) m
• Spanish: terráqueo (es)