I have seen, and can't remember, the word for 'long shadows.' Assistance will be appreciated!

There's a word for it? I would have thought 'long shadows' would have done the trick.

How long should they be to deserve a special word?

Ha....good question, Bran

sorry to disappoint, but..

Main Entry: mac·ro·scian
Function: adjective
Etymology: Greek makroskios
: having or casting a long shadow
< that macroscian day which I had dreaded for so long -- Osbert Sitwell > [W3]

ooh, I like that word.

welcome, jrp!

< that macroscian day which I had dreaded for so long -- Osbert Sitwell > [W3]

I see, many hours long.

Good discussion your question started. Welcome JRP

"fr. Gk makros, long + skia, shadow] /muh KRASH iun/
[adj.] having a long shadow; [n] a person whose shadow
is long, spec. an inhabitant of the polar regions"

I bet in the polar regions the shadow projections must be the longest on earth? And in summer the days without end?

macroscian

It's a great word, but unfortunately one would have to return to the easily understandable "long shadows" to gloss it, if one hoped to be understood by more than 0.05% of the Anglophone population.

A word to put in a vitrine with other conversation pieces.

I have it in my 'little black book of useless topics for
cocktail parties'. Now the word is not useless, but the
conversation at a cocktail party would be. .05% of the
Anglophone population, if that.

May we infer microscian as well?

Can a person be macroscian? Figuratively, I mean. I seem to recall hearing/reading that so-and-so cast a long shadow; usually a person of great importance or power, at least in certain circles.

We are all macroscian in the sunset of our lives.

Barring overcast.

That would spoil the shadows, long or otherwise.

Wow, that was good, Faldage! I was at first tempted to laugh, but I shall bow instead. [bow]

It also doesn't mean "long shadow." It means "having or casting a long shadow."

And, looking it up in the OED, I discover it does have a noun meaning, but it's 'one who has a long shadow, an inhabitant of the polar regions.' So we still don't have a word for 'long shadows.'

oh, just when we thought it solved.

well, it seems to have been (yet another) drive-by posting - so who's complaining?

So we could change it to 'dark shadows'> there used to be
a soap opera of that name.

After all this I hardly dare ask if you have one word for 'long clouds' for me.

Well--Aotearoa means "Land of the Long White Cloud" (New Zealand), which, acc'g. to Wikipedia could be shortened to aoroa--if that's an actual Maaori word I mean! ao = cloud, tea = white and roa = long

Hey--you didn't specify English!

I should have thought of that

I've been searching all sorts of exotic languages for the long shadow too. So I did not mean per se English. Old and Indian languages often have these one word sentences. Perfectly allright.

Mrs. Longshadow ( what's the cup of tea has to do with it? )

Old and Indian languages often have these one word sentences.

By Indian, you don't mean South Asian, I assume, but the native languages of North and South Americas? This is one of the problems with the X number of "words" for snow in Eskimo meme. You can see two examples in the article on polysynthetic languages (link) on Wikipedia.

So.... I am not the only one that spends hours surfing the net looking up little snippets of information. Not that I have done that much this week. But its what I do do

Count me in on that activity as well

Yes, that's what I meant, the native languages of North and South Americas and the Arctic languages. But I gave up when I did not find the long shadow there.