hemisphere
noun
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Hemisphere includes the prefix hemi-, meaning "half". The northern and southern hemispheres are divided by the equator, the circle halfway between Earth's two poles. The eastern and western hemispheres aren't divided so exactly, since there are no poles in the Earth's east-west dimension. Often the dividing line is said to be the "prime meridian"—the imaginary north-south line that runs through Greenwich, England, from which all longitude is calculated (itself being the 0° meridian). But for simplicity's sake, the eastern hemisphere is often said to include all of Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia, while the western hemisphere contains North and South America and a great deal of ocean.
Examples of hemisphere in a Sentence
Ayelet Waldman, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2024
And as material moves around the sun, these leftovers typically migrate toward the pole of that hemisphere, which usually cancels out a little of the existing magnetic field there.
—Meghan Bartels, Scientific American, 20 Oct. 2023
With five days until the hemisphere’s big election, Sweetmint must dodge a relentless law officer who’s determined to maintain order and an ambitious politician with sights set on becoming the next Chief Executive by any means necessary.
—Sarah Yang, Sunset Magazine, 7 Feb. 2024
Depending on the hemisphere, the aurora may go by a different name: aurora borealis, or northern lights in the Northern Hemisphere, and aurora australis, or the southern lights in the Southern Hemisphere.
—Emily Deletter, USA TODAY, 22 Jan. 2024
Besides sargassum—a seaweed clogging shores all over the hemisphere this year, probably due to ocean warming and nitrogen runoff—there are drifts of trash.
—Nina Burleigh, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Jan. 2024
Chile and Argentina also have a window onto the whole of our Milky Way Galaxy in a way that isn't possible from the Northern hemisphere.
—Bruce Dorminey, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2024
Some of the circumstances at the southern border are well beyond the president’s control, including historic migration across the hemisphere from Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras and other countries facing instability, violence and natural disasters.
—Zolan Kanno-Youngs, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2024
Many other countries in this hemisphere have professional baseball leagues that play in the winter, during the MLB offseason.
—Dominic Pino, National Review, 6 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hemisphere.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near hemisphere
Cite this Entry
“Hemisphere.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hemisphere. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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