solar
Noun pluralsolars (some meanings)
Pluralsolars (some meanings)
- 1Relating to the sun, or proceeding from the sun.
Bursts of solar radiation can disrupt satellites and radio signals.
Astronomers traced the flare back to a violent solar eruption.
Note
The core sense, and the one the rest of the adjective builds on: Latin sōlāris, from sōl, "sun". It pairs naturally with nouns of light and force, as in solar light, solar rays and solar influence. It is also not comparable, so a thing either is solar or it is not; nothing is "more solar" than something else.
- 2Operating on power generated from the sun's energy.
The new homes come with solar water heaters fitted on the roof.
Remote weather stations stay online using a small solar charger.
- 3Energy obtained from the light and heat of the sun.
The factory now meets a third of its demand with solar.
Investors poured money into solar as installation costs kept falling.
Note
A clipping of solar energy that has become a noun in its own right, used without an article and not pluralized. It sits comfortably in lists of industries and technologies. Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger and Alejandro de la Garza's 2021 profile of Elon Musk calls him "a player in robots and solar, cryptocurrency and climate." In this use it names a sector as much as a form of energy.
- 4Measured by the apparent movement of the sun along its yearly path through the sky.
The solar day is measured from one local noon to the next.
Their festivals follow the solar year rather than the lunar months.
- 5Produced by the sun's action, or strongly affected by its influence.
The solar heat of the desert noon cracked the parched ground.
Decades of solar exposure had faded the fabric to a pale gray.
Note
Here the sun is the cause, the thing that produces or governs. Francis Bacon in 1627 could report that some herbs are called solar and some lunar, sorting plants by the heavenly body that acts on them. The same sense now does most of its work in solar power, as when The Economist noted in 2013 that it was not "yet as cheap as the grid." Devices that run on it belong to the "powered by the sun" meaning.
- 6An upper chamber or loft serving as the private quarters of the head of a household in a medieval hall.
After the feast, the lord withdrew to the solar with his closest companions.
The solar lay above the hall's dais, reached by a narrow timber stair.
Note
A different word that happens to share the spelling, reaching English by another route. It comes from Old English soler, "raised platform; loft, upper room", from Latin sōlārium, blended with Old English solor, "residence, dwelling; hall". It belongs to descriptions of medieval houses, and its plural is solars. Anyone using it of a modern attic is borrowing a historical term.
Less common meaning
- 7In astrology, born under the dominant influence of the sun.
The court astrologer pronounced the newborn solar, destined to rule with the sun's authority.
and proud beside, as solar people are
1700, [John] Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: Or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer”Note
Astrology's version of the word, now obsolete: a solar person was one whose birth fell under the sun's sway and who took on its character. Dryden, retelling Chaucer in The Cock and the Fox (1700), writes "proud beside, as solar people are." In that line, pride is the trait the sun lends. Outside discussion of old astrology or older poetry, the sense will simply be misread.
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Practice
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Origins
From Late Middle English solar, from Latin sōlāris, which comes from sōl ("sun"), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sóh₂wl̥ ("sun").
From Middle English solar or soler, formed by blending two Old English words: soler or solere ("raised platform, loft, upper room"), from Latin sōlārium; and solor or salor ("residence, hall, palace"), from Proto-West Germanic *salaʀ and Proto-Germanic *salaz, *salą ("house, room, hall").