Galileo

American  

[gal-uh-ley-oh, -lee-oh, gah-lee-le-aw] / ˌgæl əˈleɪ oʊ, -ˈli oʊ, ˌgɑ liˈlɛ ɔ /

noun

1. Galileo Galilei, 1564–1642, Italian physicist and astronomer.

2. Aerospace. a U.S. space probe designed to take photographs and obtain other scientific information while orbiting the planet Jupiter.

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Galileo ¹ British  

/ ˌɡælɪˈleɪəʊ /

noun

1. a US spacecraft, launched 1989, that entered orbit around Jupiter in late 1995 to study the planet and its major satellites; burned up in the planet's atmosphere in 2003

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Galileo ² British  

/ ˌɡælɪˈleɪəʊ /

noun

1. full name Galileo Galilei. 1564–1642, Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He discovered the isochronism of the pendulum and demonstrated that falling bodies of different weights descend at the same rate. He perfected the refracting telescope, which led to his discovery of Jupiter's satellites, sunspots, and craters on the Earth's moon. He was forced by the Inquisition to recant his support of the Copernican system

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Galileo Cultural  

1. An Italian scientist of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; his full name was Galileo Galilei. Galileo proved that objects with different masses fall at the same velocity. One of the first persons to use a telescope to examine objects in the sky, he saw the moons of Jupiter, the mountains on the moon, and sunspots.

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Discover More

Authorities of the Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo to renounce his belief in the model of the solar system proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus. Galileo had to assert that the Earth stands still, and the sun revolves around it. A famous legend holds that Galileo, after making this public declaration about a motionless Earth, muttered, “Nevertheless, it does move.”

Example Sentences

Evolutionary theory is no longer heretical, Galileo has been issued a hall pass to heaven, and quite a few sincere if entirely inadequate apologies have been issued, mostly to people long dead.

From Salon • Apr. 5, 2026

Those companies worked with Galileo, a fintech middleman that allows consumer brands to offer debit accounts without becoming banks themselves.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 5, 2025

Retired tech titans and social media luminaries can no more control the development of AI by banning it than the Catholic Church could undo the fact that Earth revolves around the sun by imprisoning Galileo.

From Barron's • Oct. 22, 2025

Few have hope that Mars Sample Return will spur recovery as Galileo did.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 19, 2025

Galileo accepted, even though the increase in salary would only take effect from the following year, and even though it would commit him to burdensome teaching duties.

From "The Scientists" by John Gribbin