orb

• (US) IPA^(key): /oɹb/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɔː(ɹ)b/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(r)b

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

orb (plural orbs)

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

   1609, William Shakespeare, A Lover's Complaint

   • In the small orb of one particular tear.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

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

2. 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. A circle; especially, a circle, or nearly circular orbit, described by the revolution of a heavenly body; an orbit

   The schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics, and epicycles, and such engines of orbs. (Can we date this quote by Bacon?)

   • 1598–1599 (first performance)​, William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene i]:

     You seem to me as Dian in her orb.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

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

4. (rare) A period of time marked off by the revolution of a heavenly body.
   • 1667, Milton, John, Paradise Lost, Book V:

     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.

5. (poetic) The eye, as luminous and spherical
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     A drop serene hath quenched their orbs.

6. (poetic) A revolving circular body; a wheel

   The orbs Of his fierce chariot rolled. (Can we date this quote by John Milton?)

7. (rare) A sphere of action.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Wordsworth to this entry?)

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre Act 1 Scene 2

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

8. A globus cruciger; a ceremonial sphere used to represent royal power
9. A translucent sphere appearing in flash photography (Orb (optics))
10. (military) A body of soldiers drawn up in a circle, as for defence, especially infantry to repel cavalry.

• (spherical body): ball, globe, sphere
• (circle): circle, orbit
• (a period of time): See Thesaurus:year
• (an eye): See Thesaurus:eye
• (revolving circular body): roller, wheel
• (sphere of action): area, domain, field, province
• (monarch's ceremonial sphere): globe, globus cruciger, mound, orb
• (military formation): globe

same as mound, a ball or globe
See mound, ball, globe

orb (third-person singular simple present orbs, present participle orbing, simple past and past participle orbed)

1. (poetic, transitive) To form into an orb or circle.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Lowell to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)

2. (poetic, intransitive) To become round like an orb.
3. (poetic, transitive) To encircle; to surround; to enclose.
   • Addison

     The wheels were orbed with gold.

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

orb (plural orbs)

1. (architecture) A blank window or panel.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Oxf. Gloss to this entry?)

• orb in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• Bor, Bor., Rob, bor, bro, rob

From Old Occitan (compare Occitan òrb), from Latin orbus (ab oculīs) (literally “deprived of eyes”) (compare Italian orbo, Romanian orb, French aveugle from the other half of the idiom), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos (“orphan”).

• (Balearic, Valencian) IPA^(key): /ˈɔɾp/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /ˈɔrp/

orb (feminine orba, masculine plural orbs, feminine plural orbes)

1. blind

• cec

orb m (uncountable)

1. a fungal disease of wheat and other cereals

Borrowed from Finnish orpo, from Proto-Finno-Ugric *orpa, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *arbha-s. Cognate with Hungarian árva.

orb (genitive orvu, partitive orbu)

1. orphan

From Latin orbus, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos (“orphan”). Compare Italian orbo.

• IPA^(key): /orb/

orb m or n (feminine singular oarbă, masculine plural orbi, feminine and neuter plural oarbe)

1. blind

orb m (plural orbi, feminine equivalent oarbă)

1. blind man

• orbeț
• orbi

• orbecăi

• chior
• mut
• surd
• vedea