sphere : Idioms & Phrases

• noun a celestial globe consisting of metal hoops; used by early astronomers to determine the positions of stars
  armilla.
  

WordNet

• an ancient astronomical machine composed of an assemblage of rings, all circles of the same sphere, designed to represent the positions of the important circles of the celestial sphere.

Webster 1913

• . See under Armillary, Crystalline,.

Webster 1913

• the diameter of the sphere which is perpendicular to the plane of the circle. Hutton.

Webster 1913

• noun the apparent surface of the imaginary sphere on which celestial bodies appear to be projected
  firmament; vault of heaven; welkin; empyrean; sphere; heavens.
  

WordNet

• a circle upon the surface of the sphere, called a great circle when its plane passes through the center of the sphere; in all other cases, a small circle.

Webster 1913

• in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, two transparent spheres imagined to exist between the region of the fixed stars and the primum mobile (or outer circle of the heavens, which by its motion was supposed to carry round all those within it), in order to explain certain movements of the heavently bodies.

Webster 1913

• applications of the principles of spherical trigonometry to the properties and relations of the circles of the sphere, and the problems connected with them, in astronomy and geography, as to the latitudes and longitudes, distance and bearing, of places on the earth, and the right ascension and declination, altitude and azimuth, rising and setting, etc., of the heavenly bodies; spherical geometry.

Webster 1913

• a circle the plane of which passes through the center of the sphere.

Webster 1913

• . See Music of the spheres, under Music.

Webster 1913

• noun an inaudible music that Pythagoras thought was produced by the celestial
  

WordNet

• the harmony supposed to be produced by the accordant movement of the celestial spheres.

Webster 1913

• (Astron. & Geog.), the celestial or terrestrial sphere when its axis is oblique to the horizon of the place; or as it appears to an observer at any point on the earth except the poles and the equator.

Webster 1913

• (to a line of double curvature), a sphere passing through four consecutive points of the curve.

Webster 1913

• those circles of the sphere whose planes are parallel to each other.

Webster 1913

• (Astron. & Geog.), that position of the sphere in which the circles of daily motion are parallel to the horizon, as to an observer at either pole.

Webster 1913

• noun a sphere of intense political activity
  political arena.
  

WordNet

• (Astron. & Geol.), a sphere in such a position that the equator cuts the horizon at right angles; in spherical projections, that position of the sphere in which the primitive plane coincides with the plane of the equator.

Webster 1913

• the solid generated by the revolution of the sector of a circle about one of its radii, or, more rarely, about any straight line drawn in the plane of the sector through its vertex.

Webster 1913

• the part of a sphere cut off by a plane, or included between two parallel planes.

Webster 1913

• (Biol.), the blastosphere, or morula. See Morula.

Webster 1913

• noun the geographical area in which one nation is very influential
  sphere.
  

WordNet

• noun United States jazz pianist who was one of the founders of the bebop style (1917-1982)
  Monk; Thelonious Monk.
  

WordNet