phasis

name

1. The Rioni river, as it is called in classical sources.

   “Poti.* A fortified harbour at the mouth of the river Rion, the ancient Phasis, on the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea. The town is composed of a collection of wooden houses surrounded by a forest.”

noun

1. (obsolete)A phase (of the moon, a planet etc.).

   “[A]s the same face of the moon always is turned to the earth, the lunar tides must be permanent, and if the solid parts of the moon be spherical, must always cover the phasis next to us.”

2. (obsolete)Any phase or aspect of something.

   “He o'er the seas shall love or fame pursue, / And other Months, another Phasis view […].”

   “In popular language Feeling is not always synonymous with State of Consciousness; being often taken more peculiarly for those states which are conceived as belonging to the sensitive, or to the emotional, phasis of our nature […].”

3. (archaic)The first appearance of the new moon.