Obs. Also 7 -steed, -sted. [In OE. sun(n)stede, transl. L. sōlstitium SOLSTICE: see SUN sb. and STEAD sb. 1.] = SOLSTICE 1.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., III. 250. Sumor … hæfð sunnstede … winter … hæfð oþerne sunnstede.
1600. Holland, Livy, XLIV. xxxvi. 1193. Now was it the season of the yeer past sun-stead in summer. Ibid. (1601), Pliny, II. xix. I. 13. To lengthen the night from the summer sunne-steed.
a. 1636. Fitz-Geffray, Holy Transp., Wks. (Grosart), 169. The season of the yeare wherein our Saviour was borne: namely in the Winter Solstice or Sun-stead.
1638. W. Lisle, Heliodorus, IX. 148. When Summer and Sunsted makes the longest day.
b. The solstitial point (= SOLSTICE 2), or the tropic (TROPIC sb. 1 b).
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. lxxvii. I. 36. The position of the Zodiake about the middle parts thereof, is more oblique and crooked, but toward the Sunne-steed more streight and direct.
1601. Dolman, La Primaud. Fr. Acad. (1618), III. 684. The points of the … Zodiacke, which are the meanes between the said Equinoctial points are named Sunsteads or Tropicks.
1662. J. Chandler, Van Helmont’s Oriat., 56. If those Instruments [sc. hour-glasses and sun-dials] should agree under the Æquinoctial lines, they should varie … under the Sol-stices or Sun-steads.
