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Sphere   /sfɪr/   Listen
noun
Sphere  n.  
1.
(Geom.) A body or space contained under a single surface, which in every part is equally distant from a point within called its center.
2.
Hence, any globe or globular body, especially a celestial one, as the sun, a planet, or the earth. "Of celestial bodies, first the sun, A mighty sphere, he framed."
3.
(Astron.)
(a)
The apparent surface of the heavens, which is assumed to be spherical and everywhere equally distant, in which the heavenly bodies appear to have their places, and on which the various astronomical circles, as of right ascension and declination, the equator, ecliptic, etc., are conceived to be drawn; an ideal geometrical sphere, with the astronomical and geographical circles in their proper positions on it.
(b)
In ancient astronomy, one of the concentric and eccentric revolving spherical transparent shells in which the stars, sun, planets, and moon were supposed to be set, and by which they were carried, in such a manner as to produce their apparent motions.
4.
(Logic) The extension of a general conception, or the totality of the individuals or species to which it may be applied.
5.
Circuit or range of action, knowledge, or influence; compass; province; employment; place of existence. "To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in 't." "Taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself." "Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe Our hermit spirits dwell."
6.
Rank; order of society; social positions.
7.
An orbit, as of a star; a socket. (R.)
Armillary sphere, Crystalline sphere, Oblique sphere,. See under Armillary, Crystalline,.
Doctrine of the sphere, applications of the principles of spherical trigonometry to the properties and relations of the circles of the sphere, and the problems connected with them, in astronomy and geography, as to the latitudes and longitudes, distance and bearing, of places on the earth, and the right ascension and declination, altitude and azimuth, rising and setting, etc., of the heavenly bodies; spherical geometry.
Music of the spheres. See under Music.
Synonyms: Globe; orb; circle. See Globe.


verb
Sphere  v. t.  (past & past part. sphered; pres. part. sphering)  
1.
To place in a sphere, or among the spheres; to insphere. "The glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other."
2.
To form into roundness; to make spherical, or spheral; to perfect.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Sphere" Quotes from Famous Books



... benevolent Galatea casts it back into the mighty ocean. I was indeed fairly stranded, dearest friend, when surprised by you at a moment in which moroseness had entirely mastered me; but how quickly it vanished at your aspect! I was at once conscious that you came from another sphere than this absurd world, where, with the best inclinations, I cannot open my ears. I am a wretched creature, and yet I complain of others!! You will forgive this from the goodness of heart that beams in your eyes, and the good sense manifested by ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... not. Now God gives him other prospects, which he may realize: but as he forfeited his first prospect beyond recovery, so he may do also with his last: and though ill-success at school may be made up by success in another sphere, yet what is to make up for ill-success in the great business of life, when that, too, has been forfeited as irrecoverably; when his last chance is gone as hopelessly ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... of heart," he murmur'd, "Oh! fickle and unkind! Is this the cold return My tenderness should find? Is this a fit reward For tenderness like mine?— Since thou hast sought a sphere Where rank and ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... God. Now, as in bodies such excess is observed in regard to their magnitude, so in things incorporeal is it observed in regard to their multitude. We see, in fact, that incorruptible bodies, exceed corruptible bodies almost incomparably in magnitude; for the entire sphere of things active and passive is something very small in comparison with the heavenly bodies. Hence it is reasonable to conclude that the immaterial substances as it were incomparably exceed material substances as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... successful ambition had bestowed on the lonely statesman to compensate for the glorious empire he had lost,—such realms of lovely fancy; such worlds of exquisite emotion; that infinite which lies within the divine sphere that unites spiritual genius with human love? His own positive and earthly nature attained, for the first time, and as if for its own punishment, the comprehension of that loftier and more ethereal visitant from the heavens, who had once looked with a seraph's smile through the prison-bars ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton


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