equinox
/ˈiːkwɪnɑːks/noun
Either of two times of equal day and night
From Latin aequus (equal) + Latin nox (night).
Lineage
aequus
nox
The story
Twice a year—around 20 March and 23 September—the Sun appears to stand directly over Earth’s equator, creating the neat visual trick of day and night balancing on a cosmic set of scales. Romans called this an aequinoctium: aequus meant “equal,” while nox meant “night,” so the name is essentially “equal-night”—a compact bit of ancient astronomical bookkeeping. The night root reaches back to reconstructed Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts and is the distant cousin of English night, French nuit, and German Nacht. Before the Latin borrowing displaced it, Old English had the wonderfully plain compound efnniht, literally “even-night.” English later took the polished Latin route, leaving us with a word that sounds grand but still means, at heart, a night and a day trying to tie.
Modern usage
A rare internet slang term for a distinctive name or an equal-sized sexual pairing.
- Heard in
- internet slang