Ceres
Americannoun
-
Classical Mythology. a pre-Roman goddess of agriculture under whose name the Romans adopted the worship of the Greek goddess Demeter.
-
Astronomy. one of the brightest and by far the largest asteroid in our solar system, discovered in 1801 and located in the asteroid belt: the first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres is also classified as a dwarf planet.
-
a town in central California.
noun
noun
-
The closest dwarf planet to the Sun , with an orbit in the asteroid belt. Ceres was the first object in the asteroid belt to be discovered (1801). Initially considered a planet, it was reclassified as an asteroid in the mid-1800s and as a dwarf planet in 2006. It has a diameter of about 960 km (595 mi).
-
See more at dwarf planet
Etymology
Origin of Ceres
First recorded in 1570–80; from Latin Cerēs, the goddess of grain and mother of Persephone; as a common noun, “wheat, corn; bread, food”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But in a world where global warming fixes can seem impossibly daunting, limiting methane pollution from stripper wells is the rare low-hanging fruit, Andrew Logan of Ceres, a climate advocacy group, told me.
From Salon ● Jun. 24, 2026
Ceres has a market cap of roughly $2 billion, a fraction of Bloom’s.
From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026
The frameworks have been endorsed by several nonprofits including Ceres, the Nature Conservancy and the Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity Initiative.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2025
Australian firm Ceres Tag uses AI machine learning and satellite communications to track sheep with digital ear tags.
From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2025
“Oh, nothing! Just back to Mercury Mines for twenty years. Or maybe Ceres Penitentiary.”
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
![]()
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.