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orb

nounverbnounattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ɔːb//
  • United States//ɔɹb//

A spherical body; a sphere, especially one of the celestial spheres; a sun, planet, or star

noun

  1. 1

    A spherical body; a sphere, especially one of the celestial spheres; a sun, planet, or star

    In the small orb of one particular tear.

    Whether the prime orb, Incredible how swift, had thither rolled.

  2. 2

    Celestial sphere; one of the azure transparent spheres conceived by the ancients to be enclosed one within another, and to carry the heavenly bodies in their revolutions

  3. 3

    A structural motif or finial in the shape of a sphere

  4. 4

    An orbit of an heavenly body

    The schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics, and epicycles, and such engines of orbs.

    You seem to me as Dian in her orb.

    In orbs / Of circuit inexpressible they stood, / Orb within orb.

  5. 5

    rareThe time period of an orbit

    Know none before us, self-begot, self-rais'd / By our own quick'ning power, when fatal course / Had circl'd his full Orbe, the birth mature / Of this our native Heav'n, Ethereal Sons.

  6. 6

    The eye, seen as a luminous and spherical entity

    A drop serene hath quenched their orbs.

    Painfully, he forced his hot eyelids to unclose, and his distended orbs sought for some object whereon to fix; they met the patch of grass, yet red with the blood of Walter Maynard.

  7. 7

    Any revolving circular body, such as a wheel

    The orbs Of his fierce chariot rolled.

  8. 8

    rareA sphere of action.

    By what fatality the orb of my genius […] acts upon these men like the moon upon a certain description of patients, it would be irksome to inquire

    But in our orbs we'll live so round and safe.

  9. 9

    A globus cruciger; a ceremonial sphere used to represent royal or imperial power

  10. 10

    A translucent sphere appearing in flash photography (Orb (optics))

  11. 11

    A body of soldiers drawn up in a circle, as for defence, especially infantry to repel cavalry.

  12. 12

    Amount of deviation from the closest perfect aspect.

    For example, an approaching transitioning aspect (i.e., for 120 degrees) is effective when it remains within 2 degrees of orb on either side of the perfect angle.

    Astrologers' opinions vary on how many degrees of orb to allow for each aspect.

    For example Mars has its orb 7 degrees to the Sun.

Etymology

From Middle English orbe, from Old French orbe, from Latin orbis (“circle, orb”). Compare orbit.

verb

  1. 1

    To form into an orb or circle.

    Let each His adamantine coat gird well, and each Fit well his helm, gripe fast his orbed shield

    a full-orbed sun

    And is it that the haze of grief ⁠Hath stretch’d my former joy so great? […] Or that the past will always win ⁠A glory from its being far; ⁠And orb into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein?

  2. 2

    To become round like an orb.

  3. 3

    To encircle; to surround; to enclose.

    The wheels were orbed with gold.

noun

  1. 1

    A blank window or panel.

    small blank windows or panels, for in later times such panels were called orbs, blind windows

Etymology

From Old French orb (“blind”), from Latin orbus (“destitute”).

Forms

plural
orbs
past tense
orbed
past participle
orbed
present participle
orbing
third person singular
orbs
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).