Astrology Dictionary: 257 Terms Explained

Accidental dignity Strength from a planet's situation rather than its sign: being angular, direct, fast, free of the Sun's beams, and so on.
Air signs Gemini, Libra and Aquarius; astrologers associate air with ideas, communication and connection.
Almuten The planet with the most essential dignity at a given degree, found by adding up dignity points.
Anaretic degree The last degree of a sign (29°), which some modern astrologers read as urgent or unfinished.
Angles The four points where the ecliptic meets the horizon and the meridian: Ascendant, Descendant, Midheaven and Imum Coeli.
Angular houses The first, fourth, seventh and tenth houses, which begin at or near the four angles.
Annual profections A Hellenistic technique that advances the Ascendant one sign for each year of life.
Antiscia Mirror points across the solstice axis: degrees equally far from 0° Cancer or 0° Capricorn.
Applying aspect An aspect that is getting closer to exact because the faster body is moving towards it.
Aquarius The eleventh sign; astrologers associate it with ideas, community and independence.
Aries The first sign, beginning at the March equinox; astrologers associate it with initiative and directness.
Ascendant The point of the zodiac rising on the eastern horizon at the moment and place of birth; its sign is the “rising sign”.
Aspect A particular angle between two chart factors, measured along the zodiac, that astrologers read as a relationship between them.
Aspect grid A table listing each pair of bodies and the aspect between them, if any.
Aspect pattern A shape made by three or more planets linked by aspects, such as a grand trine or T-square.
Asteroids in astrology Small bodies, chiefly Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta, that some modern astrologers add to charts.
Astrology The practice of reading symbolic meaning into the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets as seen from Earth.
Ayanamsa The angle between the tropical and sidereal zodiacs, currently about 24°.

Benefic Traditional vocabulary for Jupiter (greater) and Venus (lesser), thought to bring good.
Besiegement A planet caught between two others, traditionally between the two malefics.
Big Three The Sun sign, Moon sign and rising sign, the usual quick summary of a chart.
Birth time The clock time of birth, which the Ascendant, houses and the Moon's exact degree depend on.
Black Moon Lilith A name for several different calculated points, most often the apogee of the Moon's orbit.
Born on the cusp Being born within a day or so of the Sun changing signs.

Cadent houses The third, sixth, ninth and twelfth houses, “falling away” from the angles.
Campanus houses A space-based system dividing the prime vertical into twelve; not offered on this site.
Cancer The fourth sign, beginning at the June solstice; astrologers associate it with care, memory and home.
Capricorn The tenth sign, beginning at the December solstice; astrologers associate it with ambition, structure and endurance.
Cardinal signs Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, which begin at the equinoxes and solstices; associated with initiating.
Cazimi A planet within about 17 minutes of arc of the Sun, said in medieval astrology to be empowered rather than harmed.
Chaldean order The seven traditional planets in order of apparent speed: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon.
Chart ruler The planet that rules the sign on the Ascendant.
Chart shapes Marc Edmund Jones's names for how the planets are spread round the wheel: bowl, bucket, bundle, locomotive, seesaw, splash, splay.
Chart wheel The circular drawing of a chart: signs around the rim, houses as slices, planets placed by degree.
Chinese astrology A separate tradition based on a twelve-year animal cycle and the five phases, unrelated to the Western signs.
Chiron A small body orbiting between Saturn and Uranus, found in 1977, which modern astrologers associate with old hurts and healing.
Combust A planet close to the Sun (traditionally within about 8½°), said to be weakened by its light.
Composite chart A single chart made from the midpoints of two people's positions.
Conjunction Two bodies at the same place in the zodiac; astrologers read their themes as fused or acting together.
Constellations and signs A zodiac sign is an equal 30° slice of the ecliptic; a constellation is an unequal region of sky with an official IAU boundary.
Coordinated Universal Time The world's reference clock; a local time plus its offset gives UTC.
Cosmobiology Reinhold Ebertin's midpoint-based offshoot of Uranian astrology, without the hypothetical planets.
Cradle Four planets in a chain of sextiles and trines spanning an opposition, like a bowl held open.
Critical degrees Particular degrees said to be sensitive, with lists that differ between sources.
Cusp The boundary line where a house begins; loosely, the edge between two signs.

Dasha In Indian astrology, a system of planetary periods timed from the Moon's nakshatra at birth; Vimshottari, a 120-year cycle, is the most used.
Davison chart A chart for the midpoint in time and space between two births.
Daylight saving time Setting clocks forward in summer: it skips an hour in spring and repeats one in autumn.
Decan A 10° third of a sign; there are 36, each assigned a ruling planet.
Declination Angle north or south of the celestial equator, like latitude on the sky.
Degree One 360th of a circle; each zodiac sign spans 30 of them.
Delta T The difference between the uniform time planets move in and clock time kept by Earth's slightly irregular spin.
Descendant The point opposite the Ascendant, setting on the western horizon; it begins the seventh house.
Detriment A planet in the sign opposite one it rules, such as Mars in Libra; traditionally uncomfortable.
Direct motion A planet moving forward through the zodiac, as it does most of the time.
Dispositor The ruler of the sign a planet is in: Venus in Aries is “disposited” by Mars.
Diurnal Of the day sect: the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn.
Domicile A planet in a sign it rules, such as Mars in Aries; the strongest essential dignity.
Dominant planet The planet judged most influential in a chart, by one of several scoring methods.

Earth signs Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn; astrologers associate earth with practicality, patience and the material world.
Eclipses in astrology Solar and lunar eclipses read as especially strong new and full moons.
Ecliptic The Sun's apparent yearly path around the sky, which is the plane of Earth's orbit seen from Earth.
Ecliptic longitude A position measured along the ecliptic from 0° at the March equinox point up to 360°.
Eighth house The eighth of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with shared resources, debt and transformation.
Electional astrology Choosing a time to begin something by drawing charts for candidate moments.
Element Fire, earth, air or water: each sign belongs to one, and each element has three signs.
Element balance How many chart factors fall in fire, earth, air and water signs.
Eleventh house The eleventh of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with friends, groups and hopes.
Empty house A house with no planet in it, which is normal: ten bodies cannot fill twelve houses.
Ephemeris A table, or a calculation, giving the positions of celestial bodies at regular times.
Equal houses Twelve houses of exactly 30° each, starting from the Ascendant's degree.
Equinox Either of the two moments a year when the Sun crosses the celestial equator; the March one defines 0° Aries.
Essential dignity How “at home” a planet is in its sign by the traditional scheme of domicile, exaltation, triplicity, term and face.
Evening star A planet setting after the Sun, visible in the west after dusk; traditionally called occidental.
Evolutionary astrology A modern school that reads the chart, especially Pluto and the nodes, as a story of the soul's development.
Exact aspect An aspect at, or within a sliver of, its precise angle.
Exaltation A sign where a planet is said to be honoured: the Sun in Aries, the Moon in Taurus, Mercury in Virgo, Venus in Pisces, Mars in Capricorn, Jupiter in Cancer, Saturn in Libra.

Face A planet in a decan it rules: the weakest of the five essential dignities.
Fall The sign opposite a planet's exaltation, such as the Sun in Libra; traditionally a weakening.
Fifth house The fifth of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with pleasure, creativity and children.
Final dispositor A planet in its own sign at which every dispositor chain in a chart ends.
Firdaria A Persian period system dividing life into planetary chapters of fixed length.
Fire signs Aries, Leo and Sagittarius; astrologers associate fire with enthusiasm, action and inspiration.
First house The first of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with self, body and outlook.
Fixed signs Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius, in the middle of each season; associated with persistence.
Fixed stars Bright stars that some astrologers read when a planet or angle falls on the same ecliptic degree.
Fourth house The fourth of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with home, family and roots.

Gemini The third sign; astrologers associate it with curiosity, talk and doing two things at once.
Geocentric Measured from the centre of the Earth: the viewpoint of an ordinary astrological chart.
Grand cross Four planets forming two oppositions and four squares, a cross.
Grand trine Three planets each trine the other two, usually all in one element.
Great conjunction The meeting of Jupiter and Saturn, about every twenty years.

Hard aspects Squares and oppositions (and sometimes conjunctions), read as tense or demanding.
Harmonics Charts made by multiplying every position by a whole number, to study aspects that divide the circle by that number.
Heliocentric Measured from the centre of the Sun, as the planets actually move.
Hellenistic astrology The horoscopic astrology of the Greek-speaking Mediterranean, from about the second century BCE to the sixth CE.
Hemisphere emphasis Most planets above or below the horizon, or east or west of the meridian.
Horary astrology Answering a question with a chart for the moment the question is asked.
Horizon The line dividing the visible sky from what is below it; the Ascendant and Descendant are where the ecliptic meets it.
Horoscope Originally the rising degree of a chart, later the whole chart, and today mostly a newspaper-style forecast by Sun sign.
House One of twelve divisions of the sky around the birthplace, each associated with an area of life.
House ruler The planet ruling the sign on a house's cusp, read as carrying that house's matters.
House system The method for dividing the chart into twelve houses; there are dozens, and they disagree.
Humanistic astrology Dane Rudhyar's person-centred approach, which reads a chart as potential rather than fate.

Imum Coeli The point opposite the Midheaven, the “bottom of the sky”; astrologers associate it with home, roots and family.
Ingress The moment a planet enters a new sign.
Intercepted sign A sign that lies wholly inside one house, with no house cusp in it, which happens in unequal house systems.

Julian Day A continuous count of days used by astronomers, so that dates can be subtracted without calendars.
Jupiter The largest planet; astrologers associate it with growth, generosity, meaning and opportunity.

Kite A grand trine with a fourth planet opposite one corner and sextile to the other two.
Koch houses A twentieth-century time-based quadrant system, popular in Germany; not offered on this site.

Leo The fifth sign; astrologers associate it with warmth, pride, play and being seen.
Libra The seventh sign, beginning at the September equinox; astrologers associate it with balance, fairness and partnership.
Local mean time Clock time set by the Sun's average position at a town's own longitude, used before standard time zones.
Lot of Spirit The companion to the Lot of Fortune, found with the Sun and Moon the other way round.
Lots Calculated points made by adding the distance between two chart factors to a third, usually the Ascendant.
Luminaries The Sun and the Moon, grouped together as the two lights.
Lunar nodes The two points where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic; eclipses happen near them.
Lunar phase at birth Which of eight phases the Moon was in at birth, by its angle from the Sun.
Lunar return A chart for each time the Moon returns to its natal longitude, about every 27.3 days.
Lunation One cycle of the Moon's phases, new moon to new moon, about 29.5 days; also the moment of a new or full moon.

Major aspects Conjunction, sextile, square, trine and opposition: the five aspects this site calculates.
Malefic Traditional vocabulary for Saturn (greater) and Mars (lesser), thought to bring difficulty.
Mars The fourth planet; astrologers associate it with drive, desire, courage and conflict.
Mean Node The node's average position, moving steadily backwards at about 19.3° a year.
Medieval astrology Astrology in the Persian, Arabic and Latin worlds, about the eighth to fifteenth centuries.
Mercury The innermost planet; astrologers associate it with thought, speech, learning and trade.
Mercury retrograde Mercury's apparent backward motion, about three times a year for roughly three weeks.
Meridian The great circle through the north and south points and straight overhead; where things are highest as they cross.
Midheaven Where the ecliptic crosses the meridian above the horizon; astrologers associate it with career and public life.
Midpoint The degree halfway between two chart factors, used in cosmobiology and Uranian astrology.
Minor aspects Further angles, such as the quincunx, semisextile, semisquare, sesquiquadrate and quintile, added mostly since Kepler.
Minute of arc One sixtieth of a degree, written with a prime: 12°34′.
Modality Cardinal, fixed or mutable: the three ways of grouping the signs by their place in a season.
Modality balance How many chart factors fall in cardinal, fixed and mutable signs.
Modern rulership The twentieth-century assignment of Uranus to Aquarius, Neptune to Pisces and Pluto to Scorpio.
Modern Western astrology The twentieth-century and later Western practice: tropical zodiac, outer planets, psychological language.
Moiety Half of a planet's orb, in the medieval system where orbs belong to planets rather than aspects.
Moon Earth's satellite; in a chart, astrologers read its sign and house as the emotional, instinctive side of a person.
Moon sign The sign the Moon was in at birth.
Morning star A planet rising before the Sun, visible in the east before dawn; traditionally called oriental.
Mundane astrology Astrology applied to nations, events and the world rather than to individuals.
Mutable signs Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces, at the end of each season; associated with adapting.
Mutual reception Two planets each in a sign the other rules, such as the Moon in Aries and Mars in Cancer.
Mystic rectangle Four planets in two oppositions, linked around the outside by two trines and two sextiles.

Nakshatra One of 27 divisions of the sidereal zodiac, 13°20′ each, used above all for the Moon in Indian astrology.
Natal chart A map of where the Sun, Moon and planets appeared from a particular place at the moment of a birth.
Neptune Found in 1846; modern astrologers associate it with imagination, idealism, dissolving boundaries and confusion.
Ninth house The ninth of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with travel, belief and learning.
Nocturnal Of the night sect: the Moon, Venus and Mars.
Nodal axis The line through the North and South Nodes, always an exact opposition.
North Node Where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic going north.

Obliquity of the ecliptic The tilt between the ecliptic and the celestial equator, about 23.44°.
Occidental The counterpart of oriental: setting after the Sun, or on the western side of the chart.
Opposition Two bodies on opposite sides of the zodiac; astrologers read it as a pull between two sides needing balance.
Opposition (astronomy) An outer planet directly opposite the Sun in the sky: closest and brightest for its cycle, and in mid-retrograde.
Orb How far from exact an aspect can be and still count.
Oriental In traditional astrology, a planet rising before the Sun (for the outer ones), or on the eastern side of the chart.
Out-of-sign aspect An aspect within orb whose planets are in signs that do not normally make that aspect, such as a trine between 29° Aries and 1° Virgo.
Outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which move so slowly that their signs describe a generation more than a person.

Parallel Two bodies at the same declination (parallel) or equal and opposite declinations (contraparallel).
Part of Fortune A calculated point found by measuring the Sun–Moon distance from the Ascendant.
Peregrine A planet with no essential dignity at all where it is: a “wanderer” without a home.
Personal planets The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars: the fast movers that change between people born even weeks apart.
Pisces The twelfth and last sign; astrologers associate it with empathy, imagination and letting boundaries blur.
Placidus houses A time-based house system: each cusp is where a degree has travelled a set fraction of its daily arc.
Planet (astrological sense) In astrology, any of the moving bodies read in a chart, traditionally including the Sun and Moon.
Planet glyphs The symbols for the planets and points: ☉ ☽ ☿ ♀ ♂ ♃ ♄ ♅ ♆ ♇ ☊ ☋.
Planetary hours Each daytime and night-time divided into twelve unequal hours, each ruled by a planet in Chaldean order.
Planetary joy The house where each traditional planet was said to “rejoice”: Mercury the first, the Moon the third, Venus the fifth, Mars the sixth, the Sun the ninth, Jupiter the eleventh, Saturn the twelfth.
Planetary return A planet coming back to the exact position it held at birth.
Pluto Found in 1930 and reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006; astrologers still use it, associating it with power, depth and transformation.
Polarity The alternation of the signs between two kinds: fire and air, and earth and water.
Polarity balance How many chart factors fall in the yang (fire, air) and yin (earth, water) signs.
Porphyry houses An ancient quadrant system that splits each quadrant of the zodiac into three equal parts; not offered on this site.
Precession of the equinoxes The slow circling of Earth's axis that moves the equinox west against the stars by about 1° every 72 years.
Prenatal syzygy The last new or full moon before a birth, used in some traditional techniques.
Primary directions The oldest timing technique, based on the sky's daily rotation after birth: one degree of rotation for a year of life.
Psychological astrology Modern astrology read through the language of psychology, influenced by Jung.

Quadrant house systems House systems in which the Ascendant and Midheaven are house cusps and each quadrant is split into three.
Quincunx Two bodies 150° apart, also called the inconjunct; a minor aspect this site does not calculate except inside a yod.
Quintile Two bodies 72° apart, a fifth of the circle; with the biquintile (144°), a minor aspect associated with talent. Not calculated here.

Reception One planet in a sign or other dignity ruled by another, said to be “received” by it.
Rectification Estimating an unknown birth time by working backwards from events in a person's life.
Regiomontanus houses A space-based quadrant system from the fifteenth century, favoured in horary astrology; not offered on this site.
Renaissance astrology European astrology from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, up to William Lilly's Christian Astrology (1647).
Retrograde A planet that appears, from Earth, to move backwards through the zodiac for a while.
Rulership The planet assigned to each sign as its “ruler”, whose condition astrologers read alongside that sign.

Sabian symbols 360 images, one for each degree of the zodiac, recorded by Marc Edmund Jones and the medium Elsie Wheeler in 1925.
Sagittarius The ninth sign; astrologers associate it with exploration, belief and bluntness.
Saturn The ringed planet, the farthest visible to the eye; astrologers associate it with structure, limits, time and responsibility.
Saturn return Saturn coming back to its natal position, around ages 29, 58 and 87.
Scorpio The eighth sign; astrologers associate it with intensity, secrecy and transformation.
Second house The second of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with money, possessions and values.
Second of arc One sixtieth of an arcminute, 1/3600 of a degree.
Secondary progressions Moving the chart forward one day of planetary motion for each year of life.
Sect Whether a chart is a day chart (Sun above the horizon) or a night chart, and the planets said to belong to each.
Semisextile Two bodies 30° apart, in neighbouring signs; a minor aspect not calculated here.
Semisquare Two bodies 45° apart, half a square; a minor aspect not calculated here.
Separating aspect An aspect that has passed exact and is widening.
Sesquiquadrate Two bodies 135° apart, a square and a half; a minor aspect not calculated here.
Seventh house The seventh of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with partners and open others.
Sextile Two bodies 60° apart; astrologers read it as an easy link that offers an opportunity if acted on.
Shadow period The stretch of zodiac a planet crosses three times: before its retrograde, during it, and again after.
Sidereal astrology Astrology using a star-fixed zodiac, including a Western school founded by Cyril Fagan in the mid-twentieth century.
Sidereal time Time kept by the stars rather than the Sun; at a place, it says which part of the sky is on the meridian.
Sidereal zodiac A zodiac anchored to the fixed stars, used by Indian (Jyotish) and Western sidereal astrology.
Sign glyphs The twelve shorthand symbols for the signs: ♈ ♉ ♊ ♋ ♌ ♍ ♎ ♏ ♐ ♑ ♒ ♓.
Signature sign The sign whose element and modality are most represented in a chart, even if nothing is in it.
Sixth house The sixth of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with work routines, service and health habits.
Social planets Jupiter and Saturn, grouped by modern astrologers between the personal and the outer planets.
Soft aspects Trines and sextiles, read as easy or supportive.
Solar arc directions Moving every point in the chart forward by the distance the progressed Sun has travelled, about a degree a year.
Solar return A chart for the moment each year that the Sun returns to its exact natal longitude.
Solstice The two moments a year when the Sun reaches its farthest north or south, at 0° Cancer and 0° Capricorn.
South Node Where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic going south, always exactly opposite the North Node.
Square Two bodies 90° apart; astrologers read it as friction or tension that pushes for action.
Station The point where a planet appears to stand still before turning retrograde or direct.
Stellium A cluster of several planets in one sign or house.
Succedent houses The second, fifth, eighth and eleventh houses, which follow the angular ones.
Sun The star at the centre of the solar system; in a chart, the sign it occupied is the familiar “star sign”.
Sun sign The sign the Sun was in at birth: the one people mean when they say “I'm a Leo”.
Sun-sign astrology Forecasts written for everyone born with the Sun in a given sign, as in newspaper horoscopes.
Synastry Comparing two people's charts, planet to planet.

T-square Two planets in opposition, both square to a third, the apex.
Taurus The second sign; astrologers associate it with steadiness, the senses and holding on.
Tenth house The tenth of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with career, reputation and public role.
Term Unequal sections of each sign, each assigned to one of the five planets other than the luminaries.
Third house The third of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with siblings, communication and the local.
Time zone The region whose clocks share one set of rules for their offset from UTC, including historical changes and daylight saving.
Time-sensitive placement A placement that changes somewhere inside the range of possible birth times.
Topocentric Measured from a point on Earth's surface rather than its centre.
Topocentric houses A twentieth-century system close to Placidus in practice; not offered on this site.
Traditional astrology A broad name for Western astrology before the modern era, and its modern revival: seven planets, dignities, sect.
Traditional planets The seven bodies visible to the eye: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Traditional rulership The scheme that gives the Sun Leo, the Moon Cancer, and each other visible planet two signs.
Transit A planet's current position compared with a natal chart, especially when it aspects a natal planet or angle.
Trine Two bodies 120° apart; astrologers read it as ease, flow and natural talent.
Triplicity The planets that rule each element by day and by night: a minor essential dignity.
Tropical zodiac The zodiac counted from the March equinox point, so its signs stay tied to the seasons rather than to the stars.
True Node The node of the Moon's actual orbit at that instant, which wobbles about a degree and a half either side of the mean node.
Twelfth house The twelfth of the twelve houses; astrologers associate it with solitude, the hidden and the undoing of the self.

Under the beams A planet within about 15–17° of the Sun, too close to be seen: a milder weakening than combustion.
Uranian astrology A twentieth-century German school using midpoints, a 90° dial and eight hypothetical planets.
Uranus The first planet found by telescope (1781); modern astrologers associate it with change, independence and disruption.

Vedic astrology The astrology of the Indian tradition, Jyotiṣa, using a sidereal zodiac, lunar mansions and its own techniques.
Venus The second planet; astrologers associate it with attraction, pleasure, art and relationships.
Vertex Where the ecliptic crosses the prime vertical in the west; the Antivertex is its opposite point.
Virgo The sixth sign; astrologers associate it with detail, usefulness and improvement.
Void-of-course Moon The Moon after its last major aspect in a sign and before it enters the next.

Water signs Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces; astrologers associate water with feeling, intuition and attachment.
Whole Sign houses The oldest house system: the whole rising sign is the first house, the next sign the second, and so on.
Whole-sign aspects Aspects counted between whole signs rather than degrees: every planet in Aries squares every planet in Cancer.

Yod Two planets in sextile, both quincunx (150°) a third, the apex.

Zodiac The band of sky around the ecliptic, divided in astrology into twelve signs of 30° each.
Zodiac sign One of twelve equal 30° divisions of the zodiac, named after the constellations they once lined up with.
Zodiacal releasing A Hellenistic timing technique, from Vettius Valens, that moves through the signs from a lot in periods of set length.

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