Why “sunstead” is a great word
SUNSTEAD — [Noun] An archaic term for a solstice, the point in the year when the sun reaches its greatest or least declination. From Old English *sunstede*, a compound of sun (the star) + stead ("place, point, position"), formed as a calque of Latin sōlstitium (from sōl, "sun," and -stitium, from sistere, "to stand still"). Unlike "solstice" (the detached, technical term of astronomy) or "equinox" (which speaks of balanced light), "sunstead" is the earthy, vernacular observation of the sun's pause. It is the long, motionless shadow of a standing stone, the heavy, honeyed light suspended in a barn's dust, and the weary pause of a ploughman at the crest of summer’s hill—a word hewn from the land itself, naming the primal need for a fixed point in a turning sky.