Word.ws English Dictionary

music of the spheres

music of the spheres noun: a continuous, glorious, harmonious set of sounds that are not audible to ordinary human beings, said in ancient and medieval Western cosmology to be produced by the movement of the celestial bodies.

Noun (1)

music of the spheres (uncountable)

  1. A continuous, glorious, harmonious set of sounds that are not audible to ordinary human beings, said in ancient and medieval Western cosmology to be produced by the movement of the celestial bodies.
    • For sure the milder planets did combine
      On thy auspicious horoscope to shine . . .
      And then, if ever, mortal ears
      Had heard the music of the spheres1685, John Dryden, "To Mrs Anne Killigrew"
    • He said that, the people of their island had their ears adapted to hear "the music of the spheres . . .".1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, (please specify |part=I to IV)
  2. (figuratively) Sublime, mysterious music.
    • A further wave of fluorescent balloons gently deflated, exhaling into miniature harmonicas to breathe an eerie music of the spheres.1996 October 17, Judith Palmer, “Culture: EVENT The Incident ICA, London”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 17 Jan 2016
    • As its imagery becomes more surreal and mystically abstract, Mr. Glass's ethereal electronic score, which suggests a Himalyan music of the spheres, gathers force and energy.1997 December 24, Stephen Holden, “Movie Review: Kundun”, in New York Times, retrieved 17 Jan 2016

Noun (2) capitalized: Music of the Spheres

Music of the Spheres (uncountable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of music of the spheres.

Examples of music of the spheres in a sentence

  • Like most dreamers, to whom it is given sometimes to hear the music of the spheres, Heyst, the wanderer of the Archipelago, had a taste for silence.1915, Joseph Conrad, chapter 1, in Victory: An Island Tale:
  • We once believed in the music of the spheres but now we hear silence—static and silence.2006 March 12, Harvey Shapiro, "God Poem" in The Sights Along the Harbor (excerpt), New York Times (retrieved 17 Jan 2016)

Synonyms of music of the spheres

Forms of music of the spheres

alternative formMusic of the Spheres

Questions about music of the spheres

What does music of the spheres mean?
Music of the spheres means a continuous, glorious, harmonious set of sounds that are not audible to ordinary human beings, said in ancient and medieval Western cosmology to be produced by the movement of the celestial bodies.
How do you use music of the spheres in a sentence?
Like most dreamers, to whom it is given sometimes to hear the music of the spheres, Heyst, the wanderer of the Archipelago, had a taste for silence.
What part of speech is music of the spheres?
Music of the spheres is a noun.

Words near music of the spheres in the dictionary

  1. music halls
  2. music house
  3. music houses
  4. music notation
  5. music notations
  6. music of the spheres
  7. music paper
  8. music pen
  9. music pens
  10. music room
  11. music rooms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: music of the spheres (page history and authors); Music of the Spheres (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-music of the spheres.wav.

Cite this entry: “music of the spheres.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/music_of_the_spheres. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.