a. [f. prec. + -AL 1.]
1. Connected with, bearing upon, dealing with astronomy. (Cf. an Astronomical Society with an astronomic fact.) Astronomical year: one of which the length is determined by astronomical observations, apart from conventional reckoning. Astronomical ring, staff: see ASTRONOMER c.
1556. Recorde, Cast. Knowl., Pref. 11. If Astronomicall accompt were not.
1588. A. King, trans. Canisius’ Catech., I. iij. According to ye astronomicall calculation.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., ii. 47. Aratus the Cilician, in whose Astronomical Poem this passage is now extant.
1818. Hazlitt, Eng. Poets, i. (1870), 12. There can never be another Jacob’s Dream. Since that time the heavens have gone further off, and grown astronomical.
1855. Lewis, Early Rom. Hist., v. § 11. A solar eclipse … on the 21st of June in the astronomical year 399 B.C.
2. ellipt. as sb. pl.
[1594. Blundevil, Exerc., I. xxvii. 73. Multiplication of Astronomical Fractions.]
1706. Phillips, Astronomical Numbers or Astronomicals. See Sexagesimal Fractions.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., Astronomicals, a name used by some writers for sexagesimal fractions, on account of their use in astronomical calculations.
