venus Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the second nearest planet to the sun; it is peculiar in that its rotation is slow and retrograde (in the opposite sense of the Earth and all other planets except Uranus); it is visible from Earth as an early `morning star' or an `evening star'
    • before it was known that they were the same object the evening star was called Venus and the morning star was called Lucifer
  2. noun goddess of love; counterpart of Greek Aphrodite
    Urania.
  3. noun type genus of the family Veneridae: genus of edible clams with thick oval shells
    genus Venus.

WordNet

Ve"nus noun
Etymology
L. Venus, -eris, the goddess of love, the planet Venus.
Definitions
  1. (Class. Myth.) The goddess of beauty and love, that is, beauty or love deified.
  2. (Anat.) One of the planets, the second in order from the sun, its orbit lying between that of Mercury and that of the Earth, at a mean distance from the sun of about 67,000,000 miles. Its diameter is 7,700 miles, and its sidereal period 224.7 days. As the morning star, it was called by the ancients Lucifer; as the evening star, Hesperus.
  3. (Alchem.) The metal copper; -- probably so designated from the ancient use of the metal in making mirrors, a mirror being still the astronomical symbol of the planet Venus. Archaic
  4. (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of marine bivalve shells of the genus Venus or family Veneridæ. Many of these shells are large, and ornamented with beautiful frills; others are smooth, glossy, and handsomely colored. Some of the larger species, as the round clam, or quahog, are valued for food.

Webster 1913