heliacal.

Relating to a star's visibility near the sun, especially its first dawn reappearance after a period of invisibility.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• heliacal rising
• heliacal setting
• heliacal year

On the page

The observer recorded the star's heliacal rising before the sun brightened the eastern horizon.

Usage notes

Primary category: poetic / figurative / atmospheric. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Normally non-gradable; no ordinary comparative or superlative. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Stellar visibility relative to the sun, especially dawn return after invisibility; also last setting. Meaning is not restricted to generic sunlight or every dawn. Writing functions: atmospheric description, sensory precision.