HORIZON

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does horizon mean? 

• HORIZON (noun)
  The noun HORIZON has 4 senses:

1. the line at which the sky and Earth appear to meet

2. the range of interest or activity that can be anticipated

3. a specific layer or stratum of soil or subsoil in a vertical cross section of land

4. the great circle on the celestial sphere whose plane passes through the sensible horizon and the center of the Earth

  Familiarity information: HORIZON used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HORIZON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The line at which the sky and Earth appear to meet

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

apparent horizon; horizon; sensible horizon; skyline; visible horizon

Hypernyms ("horizon" is a kind of...):

line (a spatial location defined by a real or imaginary unidimensional extent)

Holonyms ("horizon" is a part of...):

linear perspective; perspective (the appearance of things relative to one another as determined by their distance from the viewer)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The range of interest or activity that can be anticipated

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

horizon; purview; view

Context example:

It is beyond the horizon of present knowledge

Hypernyms ("horizon" is a kind of...):

ambit; compass; orbit; range; reach; scope (an area in which something acts or operates or has power or control:)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A specific layer or stratum of soil or subsoil in a vertical cross section of land

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Hypernyms ("horizon" is a kind of...):

stratum (one of several parallel layers of material arranged one on top of another (such as a layer of tissue or cells in an organism or a layer of sedimentary rock))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "horizon"):

soil horizon (a layer in a soil profile)

geological horizon (a layer of rock with a particular composition (especially of fossils); for dating the stratum)

Holonyms ("horizon" is a part of...):

profile (a vertical section of the Earth's crust showing the different horizons or layers)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The great circle on the celestial sphere whose plane passes through the sensible horizon and the center of the Earth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

celestial horizon; horizon

Hypernyms ("horizon" is a kind of...):

great circle (a circular line on the surface of a sphere formed by intersecting it with a plane passing through the center)

 Context examples 

Inside the photon ring is the black hole’s shadow, an area roughly twice the size of the event horizon — its point of no return.

(NASA Visualization Shows a Black Hole’s Warped World, NASA)

You can lie on the sofa for I know that nothing would induce any of you doctors to go to bed whilst there is a patient above the horizon.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She was bulking large on his horizon.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Unlike Earth, the spin axes of Mercury and the Moon are oriented such that, in their polar regions, the Sun never rises high above the horizon.

(The Moon and Mercury May Have Thick Ice Deposits, NASA)

At midday, not only did the sun warm the southern horizon, but it even thrust its upper rim, pale and golden, above the sky-line.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

You are bound, in justice to your family, if not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremest point in the horizon to which your abilities may lead you.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The horizon of life was totally new and unfamiliar.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

At last it showed, small and black, on the horizon, fully fifteen miles away.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along the horizon.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There was the news of a revolution, of a possible war, and of an impending change of government; but these did not come within the horizon of my companion.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)