aspect

Less common meanings

4. 4
   direction facednouncountable

   The direction that a building or place faces, or the view it looks out on.

   The house's southern aspect makes the living room bright even in winter.

   Vineyards on slopes with an eastern aspect catch the morning sun and ripen earlier.

   UsageUsually with a compass direction: a southern aspect, an eastern aspect.

   Similarorientation, exposure, outlook

5. 5
   grammar (verbs)nouncountable or uncountable

   A grammatical quality of a verb that expresses how the speaker relates to the internal time flow of an event: viewing it from outside as a whole or from within as it unfolds.

   Russian verbs mark aspect explicitly, distinguishing completed actions from ongoing ones.

   The progressive aspect in 'she was singing' presents the event as unfolding rather than finished.

   Note

   Grammarians keep aspect apart from tense. Tense places an event in time, while aspect shapes its inner structure. The perfective presents an event whole and bounded, and the imperfective presents it from within, as ongoing, habitual or repeated. English expresses aspect through constructions such as the progressive (was singing) and the perfect (has sung). Because these constructions also carry tense, the two categories are easily blurred. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts

   • Tense and aspect are distinct: tense locates an event in time, while aspect concerns its internal temporal structure. smg.surrey.ac.uk
   • Perfective aspect presents an event as a bounded whole. apics-online.info
   • Imperfective aspect presents internal temporal structure and includes ongoing, habitual and repeated situations. en.wikipedia.org
   • English expresses progressive and perfect aspect through auxiliary constructions. opentextbooks.library.arizona.edu
   • The illustrated progressive and perfect constructions combine aspect with tense. en.wikipedia.org
   • Tense and aspect can overlap in grammatical systems. wals.info
6. 6
   planet positionsnouncountable

   The position of celestial bodies relative to one another as seen from Earth, or in astrology the angle formed between points in a horoscope.

   Astrologers consider a square a tense aspect, formed when two planets sit ninety degrees apart.

   The almanac noted the rare aspect of Jupiter and Saturn meeting in the same sign.

   Note

   Astrology names its aspects by angle. Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) runs through them, 'sextile, square, and trine, and opposite', and credits them with 'noxious efficacy'. Each is a fixed angle between two planets as seen from Earth: conjunction at 0°, sextile at 60°, square at 90°, trine at 120° and opposition at 180°. Planets are said to be in aspect. The same idea also yields the astrological verb. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

   • John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, first published in 1667. wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk
   • The poem lists the aspects using the quoted wording and describes their 'noxious efficacy'. en.wikisource.org
   • Astrological aspects measure angular relationships as viewed from Earth. en.wikipedia.org
   • The five named aspects have the stated exact angles. en.wikipedia.org
7. 7
   form of a godnouncountable

   One of the personified forms of a deity, embodying one or more of its qualities or roles.

   Worshippers invoked the goddess in her aspect as protector of the harvest.

   Temples across the region honored different aspects of the same god.

   UsageOften an aspect of a god, or a goddess in her aspect as mother.

   Similarmanifestation, form, guise

   Note

   Theology uses the word for one face of a god, worshipped almost as a figure of its own. Kanitkar and Cole's Hinduism (1995) calls Shakti the supreme female aspect of Brahman. The usual constructions are an aspect of a god and in her aspect as protector or mother. The Wiccan verb builds on the same idea: to aspect a deity is to channel it. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

   • Kanitkar and Cole authored Hinduism: An Introduction. en.wiktionary.org
   • The book describes Shakti as the supreme female aspect of Brahman. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   nounobsolete

   A look or gaze; the action of turning one's eyes upon something.

   The tradition is no less ancient, that the basilisk killeth by aspect ; and that the wolf, if he see a man first, by aspect striketh a man hoarse.

   1627, Francis [Bacon], Sylua Syluarum

   Note

   The word once named the act of looking itself. Francis Bacon repeats the old belief that the basilisk 'killeth by aspect', meaning by its look alone. Walter Scott could still write in Ivanhoe (1819) of a man whose 'aspect was bent on the ground'. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • Aspect formerly meant the act of looking or a gaze. en.wiktionary.org
   • Francis Bacon repeats the tradition that the basilisk kills by its look, using the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
   • Walter Scott's Ivanhoe contains the quoted description of a man. gutenberg.org
   • Use 1820 under the requested title-page convention. The novel was actually released in December 1819, so 1819 is correct as its release year. walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk
9. 9
   verbobsolete

   To look at something; to gaze upon it.

   Note

   Here the verb keeps its Latin root's literal meaning: aspiciō, 'to see, catch sight of, inspect', built from ad- 'toward' and speciō 'look at'. Today it turns up only in old texts.

10. 10
    verb

    In astrology, to form a particular angle, or type of angle, with another planet or point in a chart.
11. 11
    noun

    The visual indication that a color light or mechanical signal displays to the driver of a train, such as red, yellow, or green.
12. 12
    noun

    A modular unit of behavior, used in aspect-oriented programming, that can be woven into many parts of a program independently of any inheritance hierarchy.
13. 13
    verb

    To channel a divine being.