septentrional
/sɛpˈtɛntɹɪənəl/
septentrional means pertaining to the north; northern. It carries an Arena rating of 1498, earned across 4 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, septentrional ranks #23 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,308 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #1,345 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #2,164 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
septentrional is pronounced /sɛpˈtɛntɹɪənəl/.
Why “septentrional” is a great word
Pertaining to or situated in the north. From the Latin septentriōnālis, from septentriōnēs, meaning 'the seven plow oxen,' a name for the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor in the northern sky. Unlike "austral," which denotes the southern hemisphere, or "meridional," its formal southern counterpart, "septentrional" fixes its gaze exclusively on the pole star. It is the cold gleam off a glacial fjord, the rasp of wind through a boreal forest, and the faint prickle of the aurora above a snow-covered field—the sense that north is not merely a direction but a quality of remoteness, where the seven plow oxen still turn in the sky and the world grows simpler, harder, more exactingly itself.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin septentriōnālis, from septentriōnēs (“seven plow oxen”), a name for the constellations now known as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, which appear in the northern sky.
adj
- Pertaining to the north; northern.e.g.“Cow's milk could be obtained in very small quantities, but it was of evil flavour; butter, in the septentrional sense of the word, did not exist.” — 1901, George Gissing, chapter 9, in By the Ionian Sea:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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