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Solstice

Science
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

Either of the two yearly moments when the sun reaches its northernmost or southernmost apparent position. It marks the longest or shortest day.

Detailed Definition
A solstice occurs when Earth's tilted axis produces the greatest seasonal difference in daylight for one hemisphere. The summer solstice brings the longest day, while the winter solstice brings the shortest. In poetry, solstice offers a natural threshold for ritual, reckoning, and reversal. It can frame a poem around fullness or deprivation, a sun held briefly at its extreme, and the assurance that even at a season's height, the direction of light is already changing.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” draws on the charged atmosphere of the summer solstice season; “At winter solstice, the sun seemed to pause at the rim of the world” uses the year’s shortest day for a moment of stillness; A poet can let the summer solstice mark abundance, with “the longest light spilling over the fields”; “We met at solstice, when Earth’s tilt made one hemisphere lean closest to the sun” joins romance to precise astronomy
Additional Notes
Solstices occur around June and December in Earth’s yearly journey around the Sun. They begin summer or winter depending on the hemisphere, with opposite seasons north and south.
Other Meanings of “Solstice”
Also Known As
Sunstand
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