Zodiacus, ci, m. g. An ouerthwart circle deuifed to be in Heauen by the Astronomers, to declare the course of the sunne alway betweene the rropikes of Cancer and Capricorn. To which points when it commeth eyther in the deepest of winter, or in the highest of Sõmer, it declineth by little and little back agayne, toward the equinoctial. This circle hath the name of the figures of beaftes, that are imagined to bee in it, to expresse the natures of the twelue signes, which are within the compasse of the same.
Lewis and Short: Latin dictionary
zōdĭăcus, i, m., = zwdiako/s, the zodiac (pure Lat. orbis signifer), Cic. Arat. 317; Gell. 13, 9, 6.—Hence, zōdĭăcus, a, um, adj., of the zodiac: zodiacum diastema, Sid. Ep. 8, 11: zodiacus tractus, Mart. Cap. 1, 44: zodiaca hospitia, id. ib. 1, 5.