Earth & SkyGreek → English
Tropical
/ˈtrɒpɪkəl/adjective
Belonging to the hot zone of the earth between the two tropics.
The Greek roots
τροπή
tropḗ
a turning, solstice
Literally: “of the turning”
Follow a root:τροπή8 words
The story of the word
The word names an event in the sky, not a climate. At the solstice the sun stops climbing and turns back, and the latitudes where it stands directly overhead at that moment are the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, so the whole belt between them is named for a reversal. Precession has since moved the sun out of those constellations at the solstices, which leaves both tropic names about two thousand years out of date.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
tropeheliotropeentropytropismtropopause
In a sentence
Tropical rain arrives on a schedule you can nearly set a watch by.
The greenhouse holds a tropical collection that costs a fortune to heat in February.