Medicean
UK/mɛdɪˈtʃiːən/
Medicean adjective: designating the four largest moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto), as named by Galileo in honour of his future patron Cosimo II de' Medici.
Adjective
Medicean (comparative more Medicean, superlative most Medicean)
- Designating the four largest moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto), as named by Galileo in honour of his future patron Cosimo II de' Medici.
- Four Medicean stars dance about Jupiter, two Austrian about Saturn, etc., and all (belike) to the music of the spheres.1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, III.2.2.iv
- Evelyn recorded a suggestion that the Society might take as its coat of arms a representation of a pair of crossed telescopes surmounted by the Medicean planets.2015, David Wootton, The Invention of Science, Penguin, published 2016, page 296
- Pertaining to the Medici family.
Forms of Medicean
| comparative | more Medicean |
|---|---|
| superlative | most Medicean |
Origin of Medicean
From post-classical Latin Mediceus (16th century; from the family name Medici) + -an.
Questions about Medicean
- What does Medicean mean?
- Medicean means designating the four largest moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto), as named by Galileo in honour of his future patron Cosimo II de' Medici.
- What part of speech is Medicean?
- Medicean is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce Medicean?
- Medicean is pronounced /mɛdɪˈtʃiːən/ (UK).
Words near Medicean in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Medicean (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “Medicean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/medicean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.