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Full Moon

Time And Calendar
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The lunar phase in which the moon's visible face appears completely illuminated. It is associated with fullness, recurrence, and heightened feeling.

Detailed Definition
The full moon is a conspicuous monthly marker, bright enough to reshape a nocturnal landscape and to draw attention from human observers. Poetry has long linked it with fertility, madness, desire, ritual, and revelation, though it can also serve as a precise natural detail. Because it returns in changing seasons, the full moon lets poets measure recurring time while showing that each recurrence is altered by weather, place, and memory.
Example
Example in poetry:
A full moon can illuminate a landscape strongly enough to make night seem almost like day; In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the moon’s changing light contributes to the poem’s supernatural atmosphere; “Under the full moon, the snow remembered every footprint” uses lunar brightness to reveal what darkness might hide; A poet may use the full moon’s monthly return to suggest recurrence, fertility, longing, or emotional intensity
Additional Notes
The full moon’s visible completeness and roughly monthly recurrence make it useful for images of fullness, fertility, revelation, recurrence, and altered behavior. It can also signal excess, exposure, instability, or the passing of time; its brightness may illuminate a scene without making it safe. Contrast new moon, which emphasizes concealment or beginning, and moonrise, which stresses motion. Avoid automatic associations with romance or madness by tying the moon’s phase to the poem’s specific action and setting.
Also Known As
Plenilune
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