Edit page | Page history | Printable version

tropical

1. Of or pertaining to the tropics; characteristic of, or incident to, the tropics; being within the tropics; as, tropical climate; tropical latitudes; tropical heat; tropical diseases.

2. [From Trope] Rhetorically changed from its exact original sense; being of the nature of a trope; figurative; metaphorical. The foundation of all parables is some analogy or similitude between the tropical or allusive part of the parable and the thing intended by it. (south) tropic month. See lunar month, under Month. Tropic year, the solar year; the period occupied by the sun in passing from one tropic or one equinox to the same again, having a mean length of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes.0 seconds, which is 20 minutes.3 seconds shorter than the sidereal year, on account of the precession of the equinoxes.

Origin: Cf. L. Tropicus of turning, Gr. See Tropic.