Zonal and Meridional - Meridional Meaning South

Meridional Meaning South

The word comes from Latin meri dies ("midday"), meaning the position of the Sun at that time. As the original Latin territory was in the Northern Hemisphere, this It is still used with that sense in some Romance languages such as Portuguese (Banco Meridional, in Brazil), Spanish, Italian (as in Meridione) or even in English (as in the Norma Jean's album Meridional).

The term meridional, sometimes abbreviated to "Mer.", was used in historical astronomy to indicate the southern direction on the celestial globe, together with septentrional ("Sep.") for northern, oriental ("Ori.") for eastern and occidental ("Occ.") for western.