2. The loss, usually temporary or partial, of light, brilliancy, luster, honor, consciousness, etc.; obscuration; gloom; darkness. All the posterity of our fist parents suffered a perpetual eclipse of spiritual life. Sir W. Raleigh. As in the soft and sweet eclipse, When soul meets soul on lovers' lips. Shelley. Annular eclipse. (Astron.) See under Annular. — Cycle of eclipses. See under Cycle.
ECLIPSE
E*clipse", v. t. [imp. & p. p. Eclipsed; p. pr. & vb. n. Eclipsing.]
1. To cause the obscuration of; to darken or hide; — said of a heavenly body; as, the moon eclipses the sun.
2. To obscure, darken, or extinguish the beauty, luster, honor, etc., of; to sully; to cloud; to throw into the shade by surpassing. "His eclipsed state." Dryden. My joy of liberty is half eclipsed. Shak.
ECLIPSE
E*clipse", v. i.
Defn: To suffer an eclipse.
While the laboring moon Eclipses at their charms. Milton.
ECLIPTIC
E*clip"tic, n. Etym: [Cf. F. écliptique, L. linea ecliptica, Gr.
Ecliptic, a.]
1. (Astron.)
Defn: A great circle of the celestial sphere, making an angle with the equinoctial of about 23º 28'. It is the apparent path of the sun, or the real path of the earth as seen from the sun.
2. (Geog.)