orrery
an apparatus for representing the positions, motions, and phases of the planets, satellites, etc., in the solar system.
any of certain similar machines, as a planetarium.
Origin of orrery
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use orrery in a sentence
This period, this slow course of about twenty-six thousand years, could not be effected in our feeble hands by human orreries.
Voltaire's Romances | Franois-Marie ArouetBut it would be better to be a mathematician than skilful in contriving Orreries.
My Schools and Schoolmasters | Hugh MillerIt would be something like the orreries he'd seen used for demonstrations of planetary movement.
The Sky Is Falling | Lester del ReyTwo orreries were made by Rittenhouse, as also a machine for predicting eclipses.
British Dictionary definitions for orrery
/ (ˈɒrərɪ) /
a mechanical model of the solar system in which the planets can be moved at the correct relative velocities around the sun
Origin of orrery
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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