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  • Pleiad
    Pleiad
    noun
    any of the Pleiades.
  • pleiad
    pleiad
    noun
    a brilliant or talented group, esp one with seven members

Pleiad

American  
[plee-uhd, plahy-uhd] / ˈpli əd, ˈplaɪ əd /

noun

  1. any of the Pleiades.

  2. French Pléiade. a group of seven French poets of the latter half of the 16th century.

  3. (usually lowercase) any group of eminent or brilliant persons or things, especially when seven in number.


Pleiad 1 British  
/ ˈplaɪəd /

noun

  1. one of the Pleiades (stars or daughters of Atlas)

"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

pleiad 2 British  
/ ˈplaɪəd /

noun

  1. a brilliant or talented group, esp one with seven members

"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

Etymology

Origin of pleiad

C16: originally French Pléiade, name given by Pierre de Ronsard to himself and six other poets after a group of Alexandrian Greek poets who were called this after the Pleiades 1


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.

See Examples For:

John Rogers' Lost Pleiad shows American sculpture at its most blatantly sentimental.

From Time Magazine Archive

In these countries, as elsewhere, stories were told to account for the "lost Pleiad", a fact which suggests that primitive men were more constant observers of the heavenly bodies than might otherwise be supposed.

From Myths of Babylonia and Assyria by Donald Alexander Mackenzie

Even in England, always less tractable in the matter of rules than the Latin countries, Ben Jonson and his friends are in some sort another Pleiad, and the treatise possesses immense authority throughout the centuries.

From Horace and His Influence by Grant Showerman

According to the Greek myth, then, the seven stars of the Pleiad were seven maidens, daughters of the Giant Atlas.

From Custom and Myth New Edition by Andrew Lang

Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below.

From A Wanderer in Venice by Harry Morley

The mistake, meantime, I believe to be, not in the Grecian pleiad of sages, but in ourselves, who have falsely apprehended them.

From Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2 by Thomas De Quincey

This brother was a star scholar, and Friedrich looked up to him as a pleiad of pedagogy.

From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 10 Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers by Elbert Hubbard

The Minister said that Victor Hugo, while living, figured in the glorious pleiad of great poets—with Corneille, Molière, Racine, and Voltaire.

From Victor Hugo: His Life and Works by G. Barnett Smith

The humane society never heard of him, the neighbors did not miss him, and the law took no cognizance of this detached citizen—this lost pleiad.

From The Shape of Fear by Elia Wilkinson Peattie

Among the pleiad of Alexandrian poets, none had so many of the faults and beauties of the school to which he belonged as Callimachus.

From History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Volume I by John Dunlop

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