primum mobile
Americannoun
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(in Ptolemaic astronomy) the outermost of the 10 concentric spheres of the universe, making a complete revolution every 24 hours and causing all the others to do likewise.
noun
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a prime mover
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astronomy the outermost empty sphere in the Ptolemaic system that was thought to revolve around the earth from east to west in 24 hours carrying with it the inner spheres of the planets, sun, moon, and fixed stars
Etymology
Origin of primum mobile
Literally, “first moving (thing)”
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.
There was no doubt whatever that Judge McCamant was the primum mobile of the chain of accidents which made our present President.
From Time Magazine Archive
Seraphs, the most powerful angels, kept the primum mobile moving; cherubs moved the zodiac, thrones the sphere of Saturn, and so on down to the moon, which fell under the care of common angels.
From Time Magazine Archive
The innermost was the central and unmoving earth; outward from the earth were the spheres of the moon, of the five known planets, of the sun and the zodiac, and finally the primum mobile.
From Time Magazine Archive
In using the terms “swift and round” Chaucer must have been thinking of the primum mobile which, as we have seen, was thought to have a swift diurnal motion from east to west.
From Astronomical Lore in Chaucer by Grimm, Florence M.
From this "top" the poet ascends through the seven planetary heavens, the fixed stars, and the "primum mobile" to the empyre'an or seat of God.
From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook by Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham
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.
