δύσις
dusis

Greek noun

Last edited: 2025-02-03
Primary meaning setting
Literal translation setting
Variants
δύσις dusis
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setting astronomical event

Ἡμέρα λέγεται διχῶς, καθ’ ἕνα μὲν τρόπον χρόνος ὁ ἀπ’ ἀνατολῆς ἡλίου μέχρι δύσεως, καθ’ ἕτερον δὲ τρόπον ἡμέρα λέγεται χρόνος ὁ ἀφ’ ἡλίου ἀνατολῆς μέχρις ἡλίου ἀνατολῆς.

‘A day is spoken of in two ways, on the one hand as the time from sunrise till sunset, but on the other hand a day is spoken of as the time from sunrise till sunrise.’

— Geminus 6.1

Genre: astronomy
Date: 1st century BCE

Geminus. 1975. Géminos, Introduction aux Phénomènes, ed. G. Aujac. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. 33


west cardinal direction

often as compound ἡλίου δύσις (setting of the sun)

Οἰκοῦσι δ᾽ οὗτοι πρὸς βορέαν τοῦ Σκόμβρου ὄρους καὶ παρήκουσι πρὸς ἡλίου δύσιν μέχρι τοῦ Ὀσκίου ποταμοῦ.

‘And they (i.e. the Treres and Tilataeans) live to the north of the mountain Skombros and they have come along to the west as far as the river Oskios.’

— Thucydides 2.96

Genre: historiography
Date: 5th century BCE

Thucydides. 1942. Thucydides. Historiae in two volumes, eds. H. Stuart-Jones & J.E. Powell. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Εἰ δέ γε ἀπὸ τῆς ἀνατολῆς ἐπὶ τὴν δύσιν ἐφέρετο ὁ ἥλιος, ἀεὶ τοὺς προανατέλλοντας ἀστέρας ἀθεωρήτους ἂν εἶναι συνέβαινεν· (...)

‘But if the sun would be moving from the east to the west, it would follow that the stars rising slightly earlier would always be unperceivable; (...)’

— Geminus 12.7

Genre: astronomy
Date: 1st century BCE

Geminus. 1975. Géminos, Introduction aux Phénomènes, ed. G. Aujac. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. 64


Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Peeters, T. (2025). δύσις (Lemma #388). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/388/

Chicago (Author-Date)
Peeters, T. (2025). δύσις (Lemma #388). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/388/

MLA (9th)
Peeters, T. (2025). δύσις (Lemma #388). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/388/

Harvard
Peeters, T. (2025) δύσις (Lemma #388), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/388/ (Accessed: December 1, 2025).

BibTeX
@misc{zodiac388,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2025-12-01]},
	author = {Peeters, Thomas},
	year = {2025},
	title = {δύσις ({Lemma} #388)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/388/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/388/},
}