Noun: aphelion
| Singular | aphelion |
| Plural | aphelia; aphelions |
Sample Sentences
-
[I]t follows from the theory of gravity, that the aphelia of Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars, slightly progress. [1837, William Whewell, “The Inductive Epoch of Newton—Discovery of the Universal Gravitation of Matter, according to the Law of the Inverse Square of the Distance”, in History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Times. […], volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […]; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: J. and J. J. Deighton, →OCLC, book VII (History of Physical Astronomy), page 170:]
Nouns inflected like aphelion
periuranion,
tetradrachmon,
elementary cellular automaton,
paregmenon,
pyramidion,
trisagion,
rhombicuboctahedron,
nychthemeron,
monohedron,
subtaxon,
enneadecahedron,
pseudorhombicuboctahedron,
hexakisoctahedron,
tetrahedron,
polyptoton,
hexaemeron,
hexadecahedron,
aphelion,
hexahedron,
snub dodecahedron, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From New Latin aphēlium (whence English aphelium, now displaced) + -ion (used in the names of other apsides). Aphelium was formed from Ancient Greek ἀπο- (apo-, prefix meaning ‘away, from, off’) + ἥλῐος (hḗlĭos, “the sun”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sóh₂wl̥ (“the sun”)), modelled after New Latin apogaeum (“apogee”).
2. The plural form aphelia is from aphelion + -a (plural form of the suffix -on).