PLANET • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Planet

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/plˈænət/ Listen

noun

Planet n.

(Astron.) A celestial body which revolves about the sun in an orbit of a moderate degree of eccentricity. It is distinguished from a comet by the absence of a coma, and by having a less eccentric orbit. See Solar system. Note: The term planet was first used to distinguish those stars which have an apparent motion through the constellations from the fixed stars, which retain their relative places unchanged. The inferior planets are Mercury and Venus, which are nearer to the sun than is the earth; the superior planets are Mars, the asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, which are farther from the sun than is the earth. Primary planets are those which revolve about the sun; secondary planets, or moons, are those which revolve around the primary planets as satellites, and at the same time revolve with them about the sun.

A star, as influencing the fate of a men. "There's some ill planet reigns."

Planet gear. (Mach.) See Epicyclic train, under Epicyclic.

Planet wheel, a gear wheel which revolves around the wheel with which it meshes, in an epicyclic train.

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Etymology of 'Planet'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Planet" Quotes from Famous Books

... remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet in one of the little new systems away out in one of the thinly worlded corners of the universe. I ...

— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain

... named like ourselves, spoke nearly the same tongue, lived on the same spots of earth, and therewithal were as different from us in manners, habits, ways of life and thought, as though they lived in another planet. The very face of the country has changed; not merely I mean in London and the great manufacturing centres, but through the country generally; there is no piece of English ground, except such places as Salisbury Plain, but bears witness to the amazing change which 400 ...

— Signs of Change • William Morris

... waited on his fortune, could have wish'd His dirty stirrup riveted through their noses, And follow'd after 's mule, like a bear in a ring; Would have prostituted their daughters to his lust; Made their first-born intelligencers; thought none happy But such as were born under his blest planet, And wore his livery: and do these lice drop off now? Well, never look to have the like again: He hath left a sort of flattering rogues behind him; Their doom must follow. Princes pay flatterers In their own money: flatterers dissemble their vices, And they dissemble their lies; that 's justice. ...

— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster

... absurd that the universal crank-movement of an engine was ever the subject of a patent. Yet such was the case. A man named Pickard anticipated Watt, and the latter then applied to his engines the "sun-and-planet" movement, instead of the crank, until the patent on the latter expired. The steam-engine marks the beginning of a long series of troubles in the claims ...

— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... on Ayesha, who evidently was determined that I should drink this cup to the last drop, "that these dwellers in the sun, or the far planet where thou hast been according to thy tale, saw thee not and knew naught of thee? It may chance therefore that at this time thou wast not in their minds which at others dream of thee continually. Or it may chance that they never dream of thee at all, having quite forgotten thee, as the weaned cub ...

— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

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