nadir

my creative writing student taught me a new word! we had finished our tutoring session and she was working on some grammar. "miss smith, what's 'nadir' mean?" i didn't know, so we looked it up...

nadir: 1. a point on the celestial sphere directly below the observer, diametrically opposite the zenith 2. the lowest point

(from old french, from arabic nazir as-samt)