a. [ad. F. sothiaque: see SOTHIC a. and -AC.]
1. = SOTHIC a. 1.
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sci., xiii. 100. The Egyptians lost one year in every 14601 [sic],their Sothiac period.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXII. 267/1. It is obvious that 1461 years of 365 days each, make 1460 years of 3651/4 days. This period of 1460 Julian years was the Sothiac period.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., vii. (1883), 151. The scholar who can unearth for me the buried dynasties of Sesostris and Ptolemy, the Sothiac era [etc.].
2. = SOTHIC a. 2.
1877. R. S. Poole, in Encycl. Brit., VII. 729/2. Consisting of 1460 Sothiac and 1461 vague years.
1887. Mahaffy & Gilman, Alexanders Empire, xv. 158, note. This attempted reform of the calendar, by introducing the Sothic year of 365 days and a quarter, is very interesting.
So Sothiacal a. [F. sothiacal.]
1795. T. Maurice, Hindostan (1820), I. I. iii. 101. This cycle of 1461 was called in Egypt the great Canicular year, or Sothiacal period.
1813. Pritchard, Phys. Hist. Man, viii. § 5. 451, note. The cycle of Nabonassar or the Sothiacal year. Ibid. More than the whole Sothiacal period.