ecliptic

Other forms: ecliptics

Astronomers use the noun ecliptic to describe the sun's path as it's seen from the Earth.

You're most likely to come across the word ecliptic in an astronomy class, since it's a technical term for the apparent path of the sun through the stars over the course of a year. It's not possible to see the ecliptic, since the rotation of the Earth complicates our perspective of the sun's movement, but astronomers have long described and drawn it. It's called an ecliptic because eclipses only happen when the moon crosses it.

Definitions of ecliptic

1. noun

   the great circle representing the apparent annual path of the sun; the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun; makes an angle of about 23 degrees with the equator
   “all of the planets rotate the sun in approximately the same ecliptic”

   type of:

   great circle

   a circular line on the surface of a sphere formed by intersecting it with a plane passing through the center