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DEC
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(astronomy) the angular distance of a celestial body north or to the south of the celestial equator; expressed in degrees; used with right ascension to specify positions on the celestial sphere
Synonyms:
celestial latitude; dec; declination
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("dec" is a kind of...):
angular distance (the angular separation between two objects as perceived by an observer)
Domain category:
astronomy; uranology (the branch of physics that studies celestial bodies and the universe as a whole)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The last (12th) month of the year
Synonyms:
Dec; December
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("Dec" is a kind of...):
Gregorian calendar month (a month in the Gregorian calendar)
Meronyms (parts of "Dec"):
December 31; New Year's Eve (the last day of the year)
Christmas; Christmas Day; Dec 25; Xmas (a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Christ; a quarter day in England, Wales, and Ireland)
Christmas; Christmastide; Christmastime; Noel; Yule; Yuletide (period extending from Dec. 24 to Jan. 6)
mid-December (the middle part of December)
Holonyms ("Dec" is a part of...):
Gregorian calendar; New Style calendar (the solar calendar now in general use, introduced by Gregory XIII in 1582 to correct an error in the Julian calendar by suppressing 10 days, making Oct 5 be called Oct 15, and providing that only centenary years divisible by 400 should be leap years; it was adopted by Great Britain and the American colonies in 1752)
Context examples:
The Juno team will continue to evaluate data collected on the Dec. 16 flyby, as well as JIRAM data that will be collected during future (and even closer) flybys of Io.
(NASA Juno data indicate another possible volcano on Jupiter moon Io, NASA)
The comet is currently 260 million miles (420 million kilometers) from the Sun and will reach its closest point, or perihelion, on Dec. 8, 2019, at a distance of about 190 million miles (300 million kilometers).
(Newly Discovered Comet Is Likely Interstellar Visitor, NASA)
Pathological features include prominent cerebellar and cerebral cortical spongiform degeneration and the presence of PRIONS. (From N Engl J Med, 1998 Dec 31;339(27))
(Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)
On Dec. 12, 2012, DXL launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico atop a NASA Black Brant IX sounding rocket, reaching a peak altitude of 160 miles and spending five minutes above Earth's atmosphere.
(Evidence for supernovas near Earth, NASA)
Goldman-Mellor and colleagues sought to understand patterns of suicide and other mortality in the year after emergency department presentation — and patient characteristics associated with suicide death — by linking emergency department patient records from California residents who presented to a licensed emergency department between Jan. 1, 2009, to Dec. 31, 2011, with California mortality data.
(Emergency department study reveals patterns of patients at increased risk for suicide, National Institutes of Health)
This is actually the second of three supermoons in a row, so if the clouds don’t cooperate for you this weekend, you will have another chance next month to see the last supermoon of 2016 on Dec. 14.
(November Supermoon a Spectacular Sight, NASA)
The next pass by the rings' outer edges is planned for Dec. 11.
(Over Saturn's Turbulent North, NASA)
During the mission’s approach phase, between mid-August and early December, the spacecraft traveled 1.4 million miles (2.2 million km) on its journey from Earth to arrive at a location 12 miles (19 km) from Bennu on Dec. 3.
(NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Discovers Water on Asteroid, NASA)
