Word.ws English Dictionary

Charles' Wain

Charles' Wain proper noun: a bright circumpolar asterism of the northern sky, said to resemble a wagon or cart. It is part of the constellation Ursa Major and includes the seven stars Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid.

charles' wain: a bright circumpolar asterism of the northern sky, said to resemble a wagon or cart. It is part of...
Image: Manfred Wassmann, alias BerlinSight, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

Charles' Wain

  1. A bright circumpolar asterism of the northern sky, said to resemble a wagon or cart. It is part of the constellation Ursa Major and includes the seven stars Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid.
    • Charles waine is ouer the new Chimney, and yet our horse not packt.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • Charles's Wain was getting towards a right angle with the Pole star, and Gabriel concluded that it must be about nine o'clock.1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter VI, in Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC

Synonyms of Charles' Wain

Forms of Charles' Wain

alternative formCharles's Wain

Origin of Charles' Wain

From Middle English Charlewayn, from Old English carles wǣn, apparently from a common Proto-Germanic *karlas wagnaz (cognate with forms in other Germanic languages, e.g. Swedish Karlavagnen). It seems that this common Germanic name originally meant the ‘peasant's wagon’ (the churls' wagon) in contrast to the ‘woman's wagon’ (Ursa Minor). Later it was interpreted as ‘Charles's wagon’ and associated with Charlemagne.

Questions about Charles' Wain

What does Charles' Wain mean?
Charles' Wain means a bright circumpolar asterism of the northern sky, said to resemble a wagon or cart. It is part of the constellation Ursa Major and includes the seven stars Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid.
What part of speech is Charles' Wain?
Charles' Wain is a proper noun.

Words near Charles' Wain in the dictionary

  1. Charles Sturt University
  2. Charles the Great
  3. Charles Town
  4. Charles Towner
  5. Charles' law
  6. Charles' Wain
  7. Charles's law
  8. Charles's Wain
  9. Charlesbourg
  10. Charleses
  11. Charlesetta

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Charles' Wain (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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