abscedo

Latin verb

Last edited: 2025-10-07
Primary meaning to be distant
Literal translation to go away
Variants
abscedo
Edited by
to be distant

Primum igitur dicatur, cur Veneris stella numquam longius XLVI partibus, Mercurii XXIII ab sole abscedant, saepe citra eas ad solem reciprocent.

‘First therefore let us state the reason why Venus never departs more than 46 degrees and Mercury never more than 23 degrees from the sun, and why they often retire and return towards the sun within those limits.’

— Pliny, Natural History 2.72

Genre: encyclopedia
Provenance: Rome
Date: 77-79 CE

Pliny. Natural History, Volume I: Books 1-2. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 330. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938.

Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). abscedo (Lemma #6035). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6035/
Chicago (Author-Date)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). abscedo (Lemma #6035). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6035/
MLA (9th)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). abscedo (Lemma #6035). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6035/
Harvard
Meinhardt, K. (2025) abscedo (Lemma #6035), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6035/ (Accessed: February 2, 2026).
BibTeX 
@misc{zodiac6035,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2026-02-02]},
	author = {Meinhardt, Kierán},
	year = {2025},
	title = {abscedo ({Lemma} #6035)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6035/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6035/},
}