The horizon (or skyline) is the apparent line that separates earth from sky, the line that divides all visible directions into two categories: those that intersect the Earth's surface, and those that do not. At many locations, the true horizon is obscured by trees, buildings, mountains, etc., and the resulting intersection of earth and sky is called the visible horizon. When looking at a sea from a shore, the part of the sea closest to the horizon is called the offing. The word horizon derives from the Greek "ὁρίζων κύκλος" horizōn kyklos, "separating circle", from the verb ὁρίζω horizō, "to divide", "to separate", and that from "ὅρος" (oros), "boundary, landmark".
Read more about Horizon: Appearance and Usage, Distance To The Horizon, Curvature of The Horizon, Projective Geometry
Famous quotes containing the word horizon:
“The whole world of thought lay unexplored before me,—a world of which I had already caught large and tempting glimpses, and I did not like to feel the horizon shutting me in, even to so pleasant a corner as this.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)
“However closely people are attached to one another, their mutual horizon nonetheless includes all four compass directions, and now and again they notice it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Four spectres haunt the Poor—Old Age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth. We mean to banish the workhouse from the horizon of every workman in the land.”
—David Lloyd George (1863–1945)