- zodiac
- late 14c., from O.Fr. zodiaque, from L. zodiacus "zodiac," from Gk. zodiakos (kyklos) "zodiac (circle)," lit. "circle of little animals," from zodiaion, dim. of zoion "animal" (see zoo). [Libra is not an animal, but it was not a zodiac constellation to the Greeks, who reckoned 11 but counted Scorpio and its claws (including what is now Libra) as a "double constellation." Libra was figured back in by the Romans.] In O.E. the zodiac was twelf tacna "the twelve signs," and in M.E. also Our Ladye's Waye and the Girdle of the Sky.