Now rare. [ad. F. lunaire, L. lūnāris: see LUNAR and -ARY.]
A. adj.
1. Of or pertaining to the moon; = LUNAR a. 1. Also, inhabiting the moon.
1561. Eden, Art of Navig., II. vi. 30. These tymes [of conjunctions and oppositions] may be knowen … by the Ephimerides or Almanackes, or other tables, or Lunary instrumentes.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, 550. The yeare as it is now, consumate in twelve lunary revolutions Eastward.
1638. Wilkins, New World, I. (1684), 9. A Lunary Eclipse.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1692), II. 530. The Moon is peopled with Selenites or Lunary Men.
1651. J. F[reake], Agrippa’s Occ. Philos., 48. There be here certain things which are Solary, and certain which are Lunary.
1690. Leybourn, Curs. Math., 447. We are not to imagine … that the Lunary Seas, Lakes,… &c. are of the same Water with our Seas.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Lunary, belonging to the moon.
a. 1849. Poe, Ulalume, Wks. 1874, I. p. lxx. The limbo of lunary souls.
b. In lunary month, year (see LUNAR 1 b).
1602. Fulbecke, Pandectes, 4. Their [the Athenians’] twelue monethes did not exceed that number of daies which doth consist of the twelue lunarie monethes.
[1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., I. x. 25. Some erroneously compute the long lives of the Patriarks before the flood not by solary, but lunary years, making a month a yeare.]
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. xii. 220. The Greeks observed the Lunary yeare, that is, twelve revolutions of the Moone 354. dayes.
1712. Desaguliers, trans. Ozanam’s Geog., 66. The Lunary Month, usually call’d Lunation.
2. transf. and fig. a. Monthly, menstrual.
1822–34. Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), III. 394. The ordinary return where anything like a regular period is established, is menstrual or lunary.
b. Lunatic.
c. 1617. Middleton, Witch, IV. i. 7. There is some difference betwixt my jovial condition and the lunary state of madness.
3. Crescent-shaped, LUNATE; = LUNAR.
1623. trans. Favine’s Theat. Hon., III. iv. 359. His … Battalions should be ordered … in a Lunarie forme, and of a Crescent.
1668. Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., I. xvii. 47. With their broad end they look towards the Cara, and with their sharp and lunary part they respect the Kidneys.
† 4. ? Silvery. Obs. rare–1.
1615. Tomkis, Albumazar, II. iii. Hang’d round from toppe to bottome With pure white lunary Tapstry, or needleworke; But if ’twere cloath of siluer, ’twere much better.
† B. sb.2 Obs.
1. A kind of apparatus for solving astronomical problems; = VOLVELLE.
14[?]. in Dyce, Skelton (1843), II. 336. Now folowith here the volvelle, that sum men clepen a lunarie.
2. ? One born under the influence of the moon.
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. xi. 47. Starres which have their most colde and moyst spirites, as the Saturnalls and Lunaries.
3. A crescent or half-moon.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, II. vi. 58. Parallelograms, Squares, Circles, Oualls, Lunaries.
