Quintile

KWIN-tyl

Definition

A quintile is a minor aspect of 72° — the 360° circle divided by five. It is the lead member of the fifth-harmonic family of aspects, paired with the bi-quintile (144°, or 2 × 72°). The Ptolemaic doctrine, the classical core set, does not recognise it: that set holds only the conjunction, sextile, square, trine, and opposition.

In Tradition

Western astrologers tie the quintile to creativity, individual expression, and skilled form-making. How much weight it carries varies: humanistic and psychological astrologers read it as a marker of distinctive, "genius-signature" talent, while mainstream 20th-century textbooks note it but use it sparingly.

In Practice

Astrologers who use the quintile keep a tight orb around it — commonly 1–2° — because, as a minor harmonic, it loses its character fast as the orb widens. They look for it in the birth chart in patterns that describe skilled or distinctive creative expression; some also follow it in transits and in chart comparison. It belongs to a wider family of divisional aspects — alongside the septile (360 ÷ 7) and the novile (360 ÷ 9) — that extend the classical set into higher harmonics, a line of work developed systematically in John Addey's harmonic framework.

Historical Origin

The quintile and its fifth-harmonic relatives first appear in Johannes Kepler's Harmonices Mundi (1619), where Kepler built aspects from regular polygons inscribed in the circle — the quintile answers to the pentagon. It saw little use for centuries, returning to active practice chiefly through 20th-century harmonic-aspect work (John Addey) and humanistic astrology (Dane Rudhyar, 1936).

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading