orb

See also: ORB

English

Pronunciation

  • (US) IPA(key): /oɹb/
  • (UK) IPA(key): /ɔː(ɹ)b/
  • Rhymes: -ɔː(r)b

Etymology 1

From French orbe, from Latin orbis (“circle, orb”). Compare orbit.

Noun

orb (plural orbs)

  1. A spherical body; a globe; especially, one of the celestial spheres; a sun, planet, or star
    In the small orb of one particular tear. --Shakespeare
    Whether the prime orb, Incredible how swift, had thither rolled. -- John Milton
  2. One of the azure transparent spheres conceived by the ancients to be inclosed one within another, and to carry the heavenly bodies in their revolutions
  3. A circle; especially, a circle, or nearly circular orbit, described by the revolution of a heavenly body; an orbit
    The schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics, and epicycles, and such engines of orbs. --Bacon
    You seem to me as Dian in her orb. --Shakespeare
    In orbs Of circuit inexpressible they stood, Orb within orb. --John Milton
  4. (rare) A period of time marked off by the revolution of a heavenly body.
    • 1667, Milton, John, Paradise Lost, Book V:
      Know none before us, self-begot, self-rais'd / By our own quick'ning power, when fatal course / Had circl'd his full Orbe, the birth mature / Of this our native Heav'n, Ethereal Sons.
  5. (poetic) The eye, as luminous and spherical
    A drop serene hath quenched their orbs. --John Milton
  6. (poetic) A revolving circular body; a wheel
    The orbs Of his fierce chariot rolled. --John Milton
  7. (rare) A sphere of action.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of William Wordsworth to this entry?)
    But in our orbs we'll live so round and safe. --Shakespeare
  8. A globus cruciger; a ceremonial sphere used to represent royal power
  9. A translucent sphere appearing in flash photography (Orb (optics))
  10. (military) A body of soldiers drawn up in a circle, as for defence, especially infantry to repel cavalry.
Synonyms
Translations
spherical body

same as mound, a ball or globe
See mound, ball, globe

Verb

orb (third-person singular simple present orbs, present participle orbing, simple past and past participle orbed)

  1. (poetic, transitive) To form into an orb or circle.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Lowell to this entry?)
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)
  2. (poetic, intransitive) To become round like an orb.
  3. (poetic, transitive) To encircle; to surround; to enclose.
    • Addison
      The wheels were orbed with gold.

Etymology 2

From Old French orb (“blind”), from Latin orbus (“destitute”).

Noun

orb (plural orbs)

  1. (architecture) A blank window or panel.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Oxf. Gloss to this entry?)

References

  • orb in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

Catalan

Etymology

From Old Occitan (compare Occitan òrb), from Latin orbus (compare Italian orbo, Romanian orb), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos (“orphan”).

Adjective

orb (feminine orba, masculine plural orbs, feminine plural orbes)

  1. blind

Synonyms

Noun

orb m (uncountable)

  1. a fungal disease of wheat and other cereals

Estonian

Etymology

Borrowed from Finnish orpo, from Proto-Finno-Ugric *orpa, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *arbha-s. Cognate with Hungarian árva.

Noun

orb (genitive orvu, partitive orbu)

  1. orphan

Declension

Romanian

Etymology

From Latin orbus, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos (“orphan”). Compare Italian orbo.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /orb/

Adjective

orb m, n (feminine singular oarbă, masculine plural orbi, feminine and neuter plural oarbe)

  1. blind

Declension

Noun

orb m (plural orbi, feminine equivalent oarbă)

  1. blind man

Declension

Derived terms

See also

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