Ptolemy

American  

[tol-uh-mee] / ˈtɒl ə mi /

noun

• Ptolemies
  plural

1. Claudius Ptolemaeus, flourished a.d. 127–151, Hellenistic mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in Alexandria.

2. any of the kings of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt 323–30 b.c.

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Ptolemy British  

/ ˈtɒlɪmɪ /

noun

1. Latin name Claudius Ptolemaeus. 2nd century _ad , Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer. His Geography was the standard geographical textbook until the discoveries of the 15th century. His system of astronomy (see Ptolemaic system ), as expounded in the Almagest, remained undisputed until the Copernican system was evolved

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Ptolemy Scientific  

/ tŏl′ə-mē /

1. Greek astronomer and mathematician who based his astronomy on the belief that all heavenly bodies revolved around Earth. Ptolemy's model of the solar system endured until the 16th century when Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the heavenly bodies in the solar system orbited the Sun.

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Ptolemy ¹ Cultural  

1. An ancient Greek astronomer, living in Egypt (see also Egypt), who proposed a way of calculating the movements of the planets on the assumption that they, along with the sun and the stars, revolved around the Earth. (See Ptolemaic universe.)

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Ptolemy ² Cultural  

1. An ancient Greek astronomer, living in Egypt (see also Egypt), who proposed a way of calculating the movements of the planets on the assumption that they, along with the sun and the stars, were embedded in clear spheres that revolved around the Earth. The system of Ptolemy, called the Ptolemaic universe, prevailed in astronomy for nearly fifteen hundred years, until the modern model of the solar system, with the sun at the center and the planets in motion, was developed from the ideas of Copernicus.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Ptolemies
  plural

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Ptolemy Ptolemies

Memorable figures include the town barber and perpetual bachelor, Jayber Crow, and the Falstaffian 300-pound farmer Ptolemy Proudfoot, who lives happily with his diminutive wife, Miss Minnie.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025

He most recently starred in the AppleTV+ series “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey” with Samuel L. Jackson.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2025

When he examined the map, he saw the figure was actually an homage to the 2nd century geographer Ptolemy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2023

A few centuries later, another Greek astronomer, Ptolemy, attempted to classify stars using a six-tier scale, assigning the brightest stars to the first tier and the faintest ones to the sixth.

From Scientific American ● Jul. 28, 2023

This implied that everything did not have to orbit directly around the earth, as Aristotle and Ptolemy had thought.

From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking

They adapted the Egyptian style partially because they were awed by the history and grandeur of Egypt and also because the Ptolemies wanted the people to see them as legitimate rulers of Egypt, not foreigners.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

Ptolemies also enticed Jewish people from Palestine to settle in northern Egypt, making Alexandria one of the most cosmopolitan cities in all antiquity.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

It was from the Ptolemies that the tube-blown glassmaking techniques we see today derive.

From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2019

Egyptians began to convert to Christianity not long after the time of Christ, but most people never learned the languages of their successive foreign rulers: the Ptolemies, the Romans, the Byzantines.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 10, 2017

It was safer for Caesar to give Egypt back to the Ptolemies.

From "Sterling Biographies®: Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen" by Susan Blackaby

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