Moon (Word of the Day, 2008/9/3)

Alan Lin

moon (noun)

the moon / the Moon

►Earth’s only natural satellite that you can see shining in the sky at night, and that moves around the Earth and changes its phase every lunar month.

--Neil Alden Armstrong, a former American astronaut, is the first person to set foot on the Moon.

moon

►The natural satellites orbiting other planets are also called "moons", after Earth's Moon.

--Mars has two tiny moons, Earth has one large moon, and Venus and Mercury have no moons at all.

ask for the moon also cry for the moon

►to ask for something that is difficult or impossible to obtain

►ask for a lot, ask for more than you need or want

--When we negotiate our salary, don’t try this strategy: Ask for the moon and hope for a 10% raise.

--Don’t ask for the moon, but have we any stars?

Promise somebody the moon/the earth

►to promise to give someone something that is impossible for you to give

--He had promised her the moon but five years later they were still living in the same small house.

over the moon

►very happy

-- David Florence simply laughed as he was asked by one journalist if he was over the moon.

many moons ago

►a long time ago

--When I got my first laser printer many moons ago, my bank manager almost had a heart attack.

moon in color

dark moon

► the Moon during that time that it is invisible against the backdrop of the Sun in the sky

--The duration of a dark moon is between 1.5 and 3.5 days, depending on the orientation of the Earth and Sun.

blue moon

► the second full moon in a calendar month

--A month with a blue moon happens every two years or so.

Once in a blue moon

►very rarely

--This opportunity only comes once in a blue moon.

--This wasn't something they did once in a blue moon. They practiced all the time.

<The phases of the moon

new moon

►the new moon is the lunar phase that occurs when the Moon, in its monthly orbital motion around Earth, lies between Earth and the Sun.

►[countable usually singular] the moon when it first appears in the sky as a thin crescent

--It was a mild night with clouds drifting across the sky and occasionally obscuring the new moon.

►[uncountable] the time of the month at which the moon is first seen

--By the time of the next new moon, the tribe had seen one birth and two deaths.

crescent moon

►the shape of the moon when it appears as a curved shape

--A thin crescent moon will appear to the left of Venus the evening of July 6.

quarter moon / half moon

►the shape of the moon when only half of it is showing

--A half moon shone through the dark, flying clouds on to the wild and empty moor.

gibbous moon

►the shape of the moon's visible surface when the sun is illuminating more than half of the side facing the earth.

--A gibbous moon called to the lake. (from the lyrics of Burning Shadows)

full moon

►the moon when you can see all of it as a complete circle

--Already the moon was up, a full moon bathing everything in a pale blue light.

waxing moon

►the moon between new and full, when its visible part is increasing.

waning moon

►the moon is decreasing in size, moving from the full moon towards the new moon

--These phases of the moon, in sequence of their appearance, are: New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon, Waning Gibbous, Last or Third Quarter, and Waning Crescent.

moon (verb)

►to bend over and show your buttocks as a joke or a way of insulting someone

--One man mooned the President's limousine as it drove past.

moon about/around

►to spend your time lazily, moving around with no real purpose

--I wish you'd stop mooning about and do something useful!

--But there was no point in mooning around until then.

moon over somebody/something

►to spend your time thinking about someone that you are in love with

--She sits mooning over his photograph for hours.

moon away

►to spend (time) idly

--The time to moon the afternoon away has come.

lunar (adjective)

►relating to the moon or to travel to the moon

-- Lunar eclipse always occurs during a full moon and solar eclipse always occurs during a new moon.

--About three days later the command, service and lunar module combination arrived at the Moon.

<moon festival

--The Chinese Moon Festival is on the 15th of the 8th lunar month. It's also known as the Mid-autumn Festival. During the moon festival, families get together to watch the almost full moon and enjoy mooncakes.

mooncake

►Mooncakes are Chinese pastry traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

--Most mooncakes are baked and consist of a thin tender crust enveloping a sweet filling. Many types of fillings can be found, such as lotus seed paste, sweet bean paste, jujube paste, and five kernel paste. Some may contain one or more whole salted duck egg yolks.

Pomelo

►A kind of citrus fruit with sectioned sweet pulpy flesh and thick spongy rind.

moonwatching

--You don't need a huge telescope to do moonwatching. Binoculars and small telescope do just fine. Even doing it with naked eyes can be very rewarding.

<some features on the moon

mare (plural Maria) or “sea”

►any of the large dark areas on the moon

mountain and mountain range

►the Moon’s mountains are large, rounded "bumps," which look much like old, eroded mountain ranges on Earth.

crater

►any of roughly circular depression in the surface formed when meteoroid struck the Moon at high speeds

ray

►rays are bright streaks of debris that radiate from some large craters