last quarter


nounAstronomy.
  1. the instant, approximately one week after a full moon, when half of the moon's disk is illuminated by the sun.

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How to use last quarter in a sentence

  • The proofs of the first quarter of the book were in my hands before I had finished writing the last quarter.

  • By the last quarter of the eighteenth century watches and clocks were quite common in the colonies, where they were also made.

    The Old Furniture Book | N. Hudson Moore
  • A pale moon in her last quarter was tossed high among the stars, as if upborne upon the ebbing tide of night.

    Joan of the Sword Hand | S(amuel) R(utherford) Crockett
  • The last quarter has made an epoch for me, by the fact that, for the first time in my serious authorship I have written verse.

  • The week of the Pascal celebrations would have occupied the time until the moon's last quarter.

    The Astronomy of the Bible | E. Walter Maunder

British Dictionary definitions for last quarter

last quarter

noun
  1. one of the four principal phases of the moon, occurring between full moon and new moon, when half the lighted surface is visible: Compare first quarter

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012