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Nadir   /nˈeɪdər/   Listen
Nadir

noun
1.
An extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything.  Synonym: low-water mark.
2.
The point below the observer that is directly opposite the zenith on the imaginary sphere against which celestial bodies appear to be projected.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Nadir" Quotes from Famous Books



... instrument be now inverted, so that the unsilvered glass is uppermost, the arc intended to be measured is CND, or the sum of the distances of the points C and D from the Nadir instead of the Zenith, which of course falls short of 180 by as much as the former ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... books, and his modes of thought had been greatly influenced by them. Students of Oriental literature will be aware that the Hindu speaks, not of four directions (north, east, south, and west), as we do, but always of six, since he very sensibly includes the zenith and the nadir. Our friend was imbued from his reading with the idea that he should pour forth his love and sympathy "in the six directions"; but since he did not accurately understand what the six directions are, he directed his stream of ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant

... great battle fought in its vicinity between the army of Nadir Shah and Ashraf the Afghan. Its post-house is also noted, as I can vouch for, for the largest and most venomous bugs between Teheran and Ispahan. We only remained there three hours, and felt the effects for ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... the materials of nature has been vastly enhanced by the recent extension of the range of temperature at his command. When Fahrenheit stuck the bulb of his thermometer into a mixture of snow and salt he thought he had reached the nadir of temperature, so he scratched a mark on the tube where the mercury stood and called it zero. But we know that absolute zero, the total absence of heat, is 459 of Fahrenheit's degrees lower than his zero point. The modern scientist can get close to that lowest limit by making use of the cooling ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... the Mountain of the South; and another in the aspen tree on the Mountain of the East; the fifth was on the cedar tree on the Mountain of the Zenith; and the last in an oak on the Mountain of the Nadir. ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... the footsteps of Night. It has long been observed that avalanches and landslips occur most frequently about midnight, and especially on moonless midnights, when the sun and moon are in conjunction at the nadir. This is the time when mines cave in; when loose bark falls from trees; when limbs crash down from old, dead timber; when snow-laden branches break; when all ponderable bodies, of relatively slight restraint, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... marked the turning point in Sofia's descent toward the nadir of shame and anguish; from the moment its significance was clearly apprehended (but it took her long to reach this stage) the complexion of her thoughts took on another colour, and the smart of chagrin was soothed even as the irritation excited by critical examination of Victor's conduct ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... "The History of the Naval War of 1812"; and I have always taken the interest in the navy which every good American ought to take. At the time I wrote the book, in the early eighties, the navy had reached its nadir, and we were then utterly incompetent to fight Spain or any other power that had a navy at all. Shortly afterwards we began timidly and hesitatingly to build up a fleet. It is amusing to recall the roundabout steps we took to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... no. To stop, were to sink into space. So, over and over we go, and round and round; double- shuffle, on our axis, and round the sun.' In an another place, he says:—'There is neither apogee nor perigee, north nor south, right nor left; what to-night is our zenith, to-morrow is our nadir; stand as we will, we stand on our heads; essay to spring into the air, and down we come; here we stick; our very ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... in question he had reached the nadir of disillusion and distrust. He leaned back in the red-covered chair, his shapely hands lying, palms downward, along the two arms of it, his vision of the room and its familiar contents blurred by unshed tears. It was an hour of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... part of life, of the bestial, the cruel, the unforgiven, and feel it debasing, so must we at the idealistic end admit the representation of the celestial after human models, and feel it, even in Milton and in Dante, minimizing. The mysticism of the borderland at its supreme is a hope; at its nadir, it is a fear. We do not know. But within the narrow range of the intelligible and ordered world of art, which has been achieved by the creative reason of civilized man in his brief centuries and along the narrow path from Jerusalem and Athens to the western world, we do know that for the ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry



Words linked to "Nadir" :   firmament, low-water mark, celestial sphere, welkin, sphere, vault of heaven, empyrean, celestial point, hardship, adversity, heavens, zenith, hard knocks



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