uk â /sÉbËmÉªs.Éªv/ us â /sÉbËmÉªs.Éªv/. âº A submissive person allows themselves to be controlled by other people: He was looking for a quiet, submissive wife who would obey his every word. Thesaurus: synonyms and related words. Weakness and vulnerability.
The times of sunrise and sunset, measured by the clock, are also affected by the difference between the two kinds of time. Although the length of daylight is shortest on the winter solstice, around December 21, the dates of earliest sunset and latest sunrise are, somewhat surprisingly, not on this date.
We all know that the summer solstice, the moment when the sun reaches its most southerly point in the sky, falls on the longest day. So it seems logical that the day would coincide with the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset of the year. But the earliest sunrise tends to happen in early December, while the latest sunset is on another day in early January. This phenomenon is created by a combination of the Earth's oval-shaped orbit and its tilt of 23.5 degrees, says Professor Fred Watson, astronomer-in-charge of the Australian Astronomical Observatory.