Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to Sirius or Procyon, two stars in the constellation Canis Major.
  • adjective Of or relating to the dog days.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Relating to the dog: as, a canicular tale.
  • Pertaining to Canicula, the dog-star, or to the dog-days.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Pertaining to, or measured, by the rising of the Dog Star.
  • adjective the dog days, See Dog days.
  • adjective the Egyptian year, computed from one heliacal rising of the Dog Star to another.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to the dog days
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the ancient Egyptian cycle of 1460 years, or the year from one rising of Sirius to the next

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to the dog days of summer
  • adjective relating to or especially immediately preceding or following the heliacal rising of Canicula (the Dog Star)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin canīculāris, of Sirius, from Latin Canīcula, Sirius, diminutive of canis, dog; see kwon- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • Summer in the canicular South of France requires an extra-strength solution!

    French Destinations 2010

  • Summer in the canicular South of France requires an extra-strength solution!

    French Perfume 2010

  • Summer in the canicular South of France requires an extra-strength solution!

    French Destinations 2010

  • Summer in the canicular South of France requires an extra-strength solution!

    French Perfume 2010

  • Tiltass, but are you solarly salemly sure, beyond the shatter of the canicular year?

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • So that henceforth let no man feare to take either easie purgatives, or other inward Physicke, in the time of the canicular, or dog-dayes.

    Spadacrene Anglica The English Spa Fountain Edmund Deane

  • That is, under the canicular, or dog-star, and before the dog-star, purgations are painfull and difficill.

    Spadacrene Anglica The English Spa Fountain Edmund Deane

  • And now in the torrid heat of summer, the canicular days being at hand, the furnaces in the glass-house of the said Angelo have been extinguished.

    Marietta A Maid of Venice 1881

  • Zorzi, called the Ballarin, although he has removed from the furnace of the said Angelo the glass which was to be kept hot, does insolently and defiantly refuse to put out the fire in the said furnace, and forces the boys to make the fire all night, to the great injury of their health, because the canicular days are approaching.

    Marietta A Maid of Venice 1881

  • The point, however, was that they had changed places; Maggie had from her window, seen her stepmother leave the house -- at so unlikely an hour, three o'clock of a canicular August, for a ramble in garden or grove -- and had thereupon felt her impulse determined with the same sharpness that had made the spring of her companion's three weeks before.

    The Golden Bowl — Complete Henry James 1879

Comments

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  • "dog" days!?!

    June 22, 2007