Dictionaries › English

zenith

Pronunciation: /ˈzɛn.ɪθ/

The English word “zenith” has 3 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The point in the sky vertically above a given position or observer; the point in the celestial sphere opposite the nadir.
  2. The highest point in the sky reached by a celestial body.
  3. Highest point or state; peak.

Etymology

From Middle English cenyth, from Medieval Latin cenit, from Arabic سَمْت (samt, “direction, path”), from the fuller form سَمْت اَلرَّأْس (samt ar-raʔs, “direction of the head”). The -ni- for -m- is sometimes thought to be due to a misreading of the three strokes, which is plausible, though it could be a mere phonetic approximation.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “zenith” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.