Other forms: eclipses
An eclipse is when the moon hides the sun, and day goes briefly dark. A total eclipse, watch the eclipse, the eclipse passed.
It happens at all because of a coincidence: the sun is about four hundred times wider than the moon and about four hundred times further away, so they appear the same size. Never look at one without a proper filter. A lunar eclipse is the earth's shadow on the moon.
1nouneclipseThe hiding of the sun by the moon, or of the moon by the earth's shadow.
“During the eclipse, the sky went dark in the middle of the afternoon.”
eclipse is an event in the sky.
Greek ekleipsis means an abandoning or failing, from ekleipein, to leave out — the sun leaving its place.
Proto-Indo-European
*leykʷ-
Ancient Greek
ἔκλειψις — eclipse
Latin
eclīpsis
Old French
eclipse
Middle English
eclipse
English, today
eclipse
Built from
From Middle English eclipse, from Old French eclipse, from Latin eclīpsis, from Ancient Greek ἔκλειψις (“eclipse”), from ἐκλείπω (“to abandon, go missing, vanish”), from ἐκ (“out”) and λείπω (“to leave behind”). a doublet of eclipsis. See also ellipse, ellipsis.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA