orrery

[ awr-uh-ree, or- ]

noun,plural or·rer·ies.
  1. an apparatus for representing the positions, motions, and phases of the planets, satellites, etc., in the solar system.

  2. any of certain similar machines, as a planetarium.

Origin of orrery

1
First recorded in 1705–15; named after Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery (1676–1731), for whom it was first made

Dictionary.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 Arouet
  • But it would be better to be a mathematician than skilful in contriving Orreries.

  • It would be something like the orreries he'd seen used for demonstrations of planetary movement.

    The Sky Is Falling | Lester del Rey
  • Two orreries were made by Rittenhouse, as also a machine for predicting eclipses.

British Dictionary definitions for orrery

orrery

/ (ˈɒrərɪ) /


nounplural -ries
  1. 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

1
C18: originally made for Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012