Astron. [L.: see LION.] The Lion, the Zodiacal constellation lying between Cancer and Virgo. Also, the fifth sign of the Zodiac (named from this constellation), entered by the sun about the 21st of July. Leo Minor, a modern constellation containing stars of minor magnitude, lying between the Great Bear and Leo.
a. 1000. Ags. Man. Astron., in Pop. Treat. Sci. (1841), 7. An þæra tacna ys ʓe-haten aries,… fifta leo; syxta virgo.
c. 1391. Chaucer, Astrol., II. § 6. As thus euery degree of aries bi ordre is nadir to euery degree of libra by ordre &… leo to aquarie [etc.].
1611. Cotgr., Lion, a Lyon; also, the (Zodiacall) Signe Leo.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 676. Thence down amaine By Leo and the Virgin and the Scales.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), II. 548/1. Hevelius’s Constellations made out of the unformed stars. Lynx, The Lynx … Leo minor, The Little Lion. Ibid., 568/1. When the sun is in Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo, the north pole of the earth is enlightened by the sun.
1868. Lockyer, Elem. Astron., 135. The pole of the globe being represented by a point in the constellation Leo.
