phasis

See also: Phasis

English

Etymology

From Late Latin phasis, or its source, Ancient Greek φάσις (phásis, “appearance”).

Noun

phasis (plural phases)

1. (obsolete) A phase (of the moon, a planet etc.). [17th–19th c.]
   • 1791, Erasmus Darwin, The Economy of Vegetation, J. Johnson, page 119:

     [A]s the same face of the moon always is turned to the earth, the lunar tides must be permanent, and if the solid parts of the moon be spherical, must always cover the phasis next to us.

2. (obsolete) Any phase or aspect of something. [17th–19th c.]
   • 1697, Marcus Manilius, translated by Thomas Creech, Astronomica:

     He o'er the seas shall love or fame pursue, / And other Months, another Phasis view […] .

   • 1882, John Stuart Mill, A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive, 8th edition:

     In popular language Feeling is not always synonymous with State of Consciousness; being often taken more peculiarly for those states which are conceived as belonging to the sensitive, or to the emotional, phasis of our nature […] .

3. (now rare) The first appearance of the new moon. [from 19th c.]

Anagrams

• aspish, pissah, spahis

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek φάσις (phásis, “appearance”).

Noun

phasis f (genitive phasis); third declension

1. Phase
2. Appearance

Inflection

Third-declension noun (i-stem, ablative singular in -e or occasionally -ī).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	phasis	phasēs
Genitive	phasis	phasium
Dative	phasī	phasibus
Accusative	phasem	phasēs phasīs
Ablative	phase phasī	phasibus
Vocative	phasis	phasēs