DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan
3.133.120.64

Search for:
[Show options]
[Pronunciation] [Help] [Database Info] [Server Info]

2 definitions found

From: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

 Pri·mum mob·i·le  Astron. In the Ptolemaic system, the outermost of the revolving concentric spheres constituting the universe, the motion of which was supposed to carry with it all the inclosed spheres with their planets in a daily revolution from east to west. See Crystalline heavens, under Crystalline.
    The motions of the greatest persons in a government ought to be, as the motions of the planets, under primum mobile.   --Bacon.
 

From: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

 Crys·tal·line a.
 1. Consisting, or made, of crystal.
    Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.   --Shak.
 2. Formed by crystallization; like crystal in texture.
    Their crystalline structure.   --Whewell.
 3. Imperfectly crystallized; as, granite is only crystalline, while quartz crystal is perfectly crystallized.
 4. Fig.: Resembling crystal; pure; transparent; pellucid. “The crystalline sky.”
 Crystalline heavens, or Crystalline spheres, in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, two transparent spheres imagined to exist between the region of the fixed stars and the primum mobile (or outer circle of the heavens, which by its motion was supposed to carry round all those within it), in order to explain certain movements of the heavenly bodies.
 Crystalline lens Anat., the capsular lenslike body in the eye, serving to focus the rays of light. It consists of rodlike cells derived from the external embryonic epithelium.