[a. L. quincunx (quincunc-em) five-twelfths, f. quinque five + uncia a twelfth, OUNCE. Hence also F. quinconce († -cunce, -cunx): cf. QUINCUNCE.]
1. Astrol. An aspect of planets in which these are at a distance of 5 signs or 150 degrees from each other. rare.
1647. Lilly, Chr. Astrol., iii. 32. One Kepler, a learned man, hath added some new ones, as follow, viz.: A Quincunx Vc consisting of 150 degrees.
1686. Goad, Celest. Bodies, II. iv. 199. Whereas if ♂ be about the Quincunx of Sol, a Sign distant from the Oppositional Line, he is in a chill posture.
2. An arrangement or disposition of five objects so placed that four occupy the corners, and the fifth the center, of a square or other rectangle; a set of five things arranged in this manner.
This sense, which also existed in L., is app. due to the use of five dots or dashes, thus arranged, to denote five-twelfths of an as.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Gard. Cyrus, iii. 122. The single Quincunx of the Hyades upon the neck of Taurus.
1750. Phil. Trans., XLVII. 107. These cellules are … disposed in the manner of a quincunx.
1785. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., vi. (1794), 68. The florets … are placed very thick … in form of a quincunx, or the checks upon a chess-board.
1858. W. Clark, trans. Van der Hoeven’s Zool. (1866), II. 64. Teeth crowded, arranged in a quincunx.
b. spec. as a basis of arrangement in planting trees, either in a single set of five or in combinations of this; a group of five trees so planted.
1664. Evelyn, Pomona, 15. [The orchard] may assume the Ornament of Cyrus, and flourish in the Quincunx.
1731. Pope, Ep. Burlington, 80. His Quincunx darkens, his Espaliers meet.
1782. V. Knox, Ess., clviii. (1819), III. 189. Plantations perfectly regular, and laid out in quincunxes.
1880. C. R. Markham, Peruv. Bark, 20. For every tree felled, the bark collector should plant a quincunx.
c. Bot. Quincuncial æstivation.
1832. Lindley, Introd. Bot., 411.
d. attrib. In the form, on the principle of, a quincunx, as quincunx arrangement, fashion, form, order.
1707. Woodward, Acct. Roman Urns (1713), § 19. In some the squares were … ranged in a quincunx order.
1759. trans. Duhamel’s Husb., I. vii. (1762), 17. These heaps are disposed in a quincunx form.
1802. W. Forsyth, Fruit Trees, xxiii. (1824), 345. If trees are planted in the quincunx order.
1883. H. P. Dunster, in 19th Cent., Nov., 871. Where trees are planted in straight lines, on the quincunx arrangement, that is every four trees forming not a square but a diamond.
3. A cruciform reliquary having five equal parts, which can be closed up by folding the outer parts over the central one. (Fallows, Suppl. Dict., 1886.)
Hence Quincunxial a. = QUINCUNCIAL. rare.
1676. Worlidge, Cyder (1691), 100. That the one may stand against the space last preceding in a quincunxial order.
1835. J. S. Henslow, Descr. Phys. Bot., 139. The ‘quincunxial’ arrangement, where the appendages [on the stem] range in five ranks.
