sphere
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /sfɪə(ɹ)/
enpr: sfîr
ipa: /sfɪɚ/
rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
Forms: form: spheres
form: sphære
form: sphear
form: spheare
Etymology: From Middle English spere, from Old French sphere, from Late Latin sphēra, earlier Latin sphaera (“ball, globe, celestial sphere”), from Ancient Greek σφαῖρα (sphaîra, “ball, globe”), of unknown origin. Not related to superficially similar Persian سپهر (sepehr, “sky”) .
Senses: topics: mathematics
sciences
synonyms: 2-sphere
glosses: A surface in three dimensions consisting of all points equidistant from a center. .
examples: text: Of celestial bodies, first the sun, / A mighty sphere, he framed.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: So your orientation changes a little bit but it sinks in that the world is a sphere, and you're going around it, sometimes under it, sideways, or over it.
ref: 2011 July 6, Piers Sellers, The Guardian:
synonyms: orb
glosses: An object which appears to be bounded by a sphere; a round object, a ball.
examples: text: Though cold and darkness longer hang somewhere, / Yet Phoebus equally lights all the Sphere.
ref: 1635, John Donne, His parting form her:
text: Resistless rolls the illimitable sphere, / And one great circle forms the unmeasured year.
ref: 1791, Erasmus Darwin, The Economy of Vegetation, J. Johnson, page 190:
topics: astronomy
natural-sciences
glosses: The celestial sphere: the edge of the heavens, imagined as a hollow globe within which celestial bodies appear to be embedded.
examples: text: ſooner ſhall the Sun fall from his Spheare,
Than Tamburlaine be ſlaine or ouercome.
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:
text: It is more simplicitie to teach our children[…][t]he knowledge of the starres, and the motion of the eighth spheare, before their owne.
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 153:
text: They understood not the motion of the eighth sphear from West to East, and so conceived the longitude of the Stars invariable.
ref: 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, I.6:
topics: astronomy
human-sciences
mysticism
mythology
natural-sciences
philosophy
sciences
glosses: Any of the concentric hollow transparent globes formerly believed to rotate around the Earth, and which carried the heavenly bodies; there were originally believed to be eight, and later nine and ten; friction between them was thought to cause a harmonious sound (the music of the spheres).
topics: human-sciences
mysticism
mythology
philosophy
sciences
glosses: An area of activity for a planet; or by extension, an area of influence for a god, hero etc.
examples: text: sphere of influence
text: ...while his sweet and gentle niece would be a charming companion for Francesca; and he thought, with a glow of affection long unfelt, that Lucy Aylmer must inevitably make a friend whose future kindness might add much to her happiness. Both were at present placed out of their sphere: but the one would in all probability have it greatly in her power to cherish and aid the other.
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 203:
text: They thought – originally on grounds derived from religion – that each thing or person had its or his proper sphere, to overstep which is ‘unjust’.
ref: 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.20:
synonyms: area
field
orbit
sector
glosses: The region in which something or someone is active; one's province, domain.
examples: text: in one's sphere
synonyms: element
glosses: The natural, normal, or proper place (of something).
topics: geometry
mathematics
sciences
glosses: The set of all points in three-dimensional Euclidean space (or n-dimensional space, in topology) that are a fixed distance from a fixed point .
examples: text: In point of fact, so often as we think a subject as partially included within the sphere of a predicate, eo ipso we think it as partially, that is, particularly, excluded therefrom.
ref: a. 1856, William Hamilton, “Appendix III: Quantification of Predicate,—Immediate Inference,—Conversion,—Opposition”, in Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, volume 2, published 1860, page 526:
text: All categorical propositions necessarily imply the existence of their subjects in the appropriate sphere; in affirmative propositions this involves the existence of the predicate in the same sphere; but in negative propositions the predicate does not necessarily exist in that particular sphere, though it does in some sphere.
ref: 1896, James Welton, A Manual of Logic, 2nd edition, volume 1, page 213:
text: Finally, the disjunctive judgment contains a relation of two or more propositions to each other—a relation not of consequence, but of logical opposition, in so far as the sphere of the one proposition excludes that of the other.
ref: 1900 [1781], Immanuel Kant, translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, Critique of Pure Reason, page 58:
topics: human-sciences
logic
mathematics
philosophy
sciences
glosses: The domain of reference of a proposition, subject, or predicate, or the totality of the particular subjects to which it applies.
Derived terms: Afrosphere
Alexander horned sphere
amylosphere
angiosphere
anthosphere
armillary sphere
asphere
astrosphere
Bloch sphere
blogosphere
bronchosphere
cardiosphere
carposphere
caulosphere
colonosphere
colosphere
cosmosphere
cosphere
cryptosphere
crystal sphere
Debye sphere
demisphere
digisphere
Dyson sphere
ectosphere
endosphere
ensphere
enterosphere
episphere
esophagosphere
exotic sphere
fluorosphere
fold sphere
hepatosphere
Hill sphere
homology sphere
Hubble sphere
hypersphere
icosasphere
immunosphere
incelosphere
intersphere
Klerksdorp sphere
liposphere
macrosphere
medullosphere
megalosphere
memosphere
microspherocyte
midsphere
minisphere
multisphere
myosphere
myrmecosphere
nanosphere
nephrosphere
nonsphere
oblique sphere
oligosphere
orosphere
peanosphere
photon sphere
phycosphere
pneumosphere
polysphere
prostasphere
pseudosphere
public sphere pedagogy
radiansphere
Riemann sphere
semisphere
servosphere
skysphere
sociosphere
spermosphere
sphereing
sphereless
spherelike
sphere of influence
sphere of interest
sphere of knowledge
sphere packing
sphere-yeast
spheric
spherics
spherification
spherify
spherite
spherium
spherize
spherocylindrical
spheromak
sphery
sublunary sphere
subsphere
supersphere
thyrosphere
trochosphere
tumorsphere
undersphere
unit sphere
unsphere
xenosphere
Related terms: atmosphere
hemisphere
ionosphere
n-sphere
planisphere
spherical
spheroid
stratosphere
troposphere