equinox

noun

1. One of two times in the year (one in March and the other in September) when the length of the day and the night are equal, which occurs when the sun is directly overhead at the equator; this marks the beginning of spring in one hemisphere and autumn in the other.

   “[T]he Months of March and September, the tvvo Æquinoxes of Our year, are the moſt vvindy and tempeſtuous, the moſt unſettled and unequable of Seaſons in moſt Countries of the VVorld.”

   “The four grand and ſolemn Bardic days are, of ancient uſage, the tvvo equinoxes, and the tvvo ſolſtices; the nevv and full moons are alſo, ſubordinately, ſolemn Bardic days: […]”

   “[H]e [Milton] believed, his poetic vein only flowed from the autumnal to the vernal equinox; and, in his essay on Education, he doubts whether, in the fine days of spring, any study can be accomplished by young men.”

   “Live long, nor feel in head or chest / Our changeful equinoxes, / Till mellow Death, like some late guest, / Shall call thee from the boxes.”

   “21. Report the experiments, if conveniently they may, at both the solstices and equinoctes. / 22. Observe accurately the time of the sun’s rising on the top of the hill and below, and note the difference.”

2. (also, figuratively)The circumstance of a twenty-four hour time period having the day and night of equal length.

   “[D]oe but ſee his vice, / Tis to his vertue, a iuſt equinox, / The one as long as th'other: […]”

3. One of the two points in space where the apparent path of the Sun intersects with the equatorial plane of the Earth.
4. (obsolete, rare)A gale (“very strong wind”) once thought to occur more frequently around the time of an equinox (sense 1), now known to be a misconception; an equinoctial gale.

   “The paſſage yet vvas good, the vvind, 'tis true, / VVas ſomevvhat high, but that vvas nothing nevv, / Nor more than uſual Equinoxes blevv.”

   “The Equinox drove the sand into their faces or round their legs, as they dived among the sheep-haunted hollows.”

5. (obsolete)A celestial equator (“great circle on the celestial sphere, coincident with the plane of the Earth's equator (the equatorial plane)”); also, the Earth's equator.

   “[T]hey [seals] are over all the American Coaſt of the South Seas, from Terra del Fuego, up to the Equinoctial Line: but to the North of the Equinox again, in theſe Sea, I never ſavv any, till as far as 21 North Lat[itude].”