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Definitions: OCCULTATION |
OCCULTATIONNoun1. Fig.: The state of being occult. 2. The hiding of a heavenly body from sight by the intervention of some other of the heavenly bodies; -- applied especially to eclipses of stars and planets by the moon, and to the eclipses of satellites of planets by their primaries. |
Date "OCCULTATION" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1835. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Aerospace | The disappearance of a body behind another body of larger apparent size.When the moon passes between the observer and a star, the star is said to be occulted. The three associated terms, occultation, eclipse, and transit, are exemplified by the motions of the satellites of Jupiter. An eclipse occurs when a satellite passes into the shadow cast by the planet; an occultation occurs when a satellite passes directly behind the planet; so that it could not be seen even if it were illuminated; and a transit occurs when a satellite passes between the observer and the planet, showing against the disk of the planet. (references) |
Geography | The obscuring of an observed body by a larger body passing in front of it. Source: European Union. (references) |
Physics | The blockage of light by the intervention of another object; a planet can occult (block) the light from a distant star. (references) |
Transportation | A relatively brief interval of darkness, in comparison with the longest interval of light in the same character. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The term is most frequently employed to describe those, relatively frequent, occasions on which the Moon passes in front of a star. To a pedant, a total solar eclipse is an occultation of the Sun. The distinction is more important in contexts such as the system of Jovian satellites. In this case a satellite may be eclipsed (invisible because Jupiter's shadow prevents any sunlight falling on it) or occulted (hidden from us because Jupiter lies on our line of sight).
There are three first magnitude stars that are sufficiently close to the ecliptic that they may be occulted by the Moon and by planets: Regulus, Spica and Aldebaran. The first magnitude star Antares is somewhat further from the ecliptic and according to some sources can undergo occultation on very rare occasions.
Stars may be occulted by planets as well as by the Moon. The rings around the planet Uranus were first discovered when it occulted a star in 1977.
Early radio astronomers found occultations of radio sources by the Moon valuable for determining their exact positions, because the long wavelength of radio waves limited the resolution available through direct observation.
In Islam the term is also applied to the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Occultation."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Concealment | Noun: concealment; hiding; Verb: occultation, mystification. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: OCCULTATION |
| English words defined with "OCCULTATION": Occulting. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "OCCULTATION" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. French (concealing, hiding, occultation, occulting). |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "OCCULTATION" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "OCCULTATION" is used about 17 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 17 | 85,106 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "OCCULTATION": Circle of perpetual occultation. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
occultation | 4 |
d occultation store | 3 |
d occultation textile | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "OCCULTATION"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | كسوف (eclipse, solar). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | затъмнение (blackout, dim out, eclipse, immersion, obscuration). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | korte formørkelser, formoerkelse. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | occultatie, verduistering (blanketing, defalcation, dimming, embezzlement, misappropriation, obscuration, screening), bedekking (cover, hood, lid). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | occultation (occulting). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Bedeckung (cover, covering, eclipse, encrustation, escort, guard, hood, lid, overlay). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | απόκρυψη (conceal, concealment, hiding, secrete, secretion, suppression), διάλειψη (black out, fade, fading, fading of signals). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | occultazione (blanking, screening), occultamento (concealment, dissimulation, hiding), eclisse. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 星食 . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | せいしょく (blue, healthy complexion, holy orders, ministry, primary colors, reproduction, sacred profession, song and women, vocation, voice and countenance, weaving). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | kyaghtey (occult), follaghey (bo-peep, cache, conceal, cover up, disguise, dissemble, dissimulate, dissimulation, hide, hiding, muffle, occult, secrecy, secrete, veil). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | occultationay oculaţie, eclipsare (effacement). (various references) ocultación (concealment, decrease, disappearance, dissimulation, hiding, screening, secretion). (various references) зникнення (disappearance, elopement, evanescence, vanishing), застилання зірки місяцем, затінення (shading). (various references) sự che lấp, sự che khuất (eclipse). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "OCCULTATION": occultations. (additional references) | |
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"OCCULTATION" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: occlution, occulation, occulations, occultatio, occultations, occuptation, oculation, okistation, oscultation. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-c-i-l-n-o-o-t-t-u" | |
-3 letters: anticult, coaction, cocoanut, lactonic, location, locution. | |
-4 letters: account, auction, caution, coconut, colonic, conical, contact, coolant, council, inocula, laconic, linocut, lunatic, octanol, outlain, taction. | |
-5 letters: action, alnico, atonic, calico, cantic, cation, catlin, citola, clonic, cocain, coital, coloni, cotton, cultic, incult, intact, lactic, latino, lattin, lotion, occult, octant, oilcan, outact, tactic, talion, tictac, tictoc, tincal. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-c-i-l-n-o-o-t-t-u" | |
+1 letter: occultations. | |
+2 letters: cocultivation. | |
+3 letters: cocultivations, constructional. | |
+5 letters: constructionally, countercomplaint. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4F 43 43 55 4C 54 41 54 49 4F 4E |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)--- -.-. -.-. ..- .-.. - .- - .. --- -. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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| Amazon.com BOOKS: Search for: "OCCULTATION" |
