orbs

Noun

orb (countable and uncountable, plural orbs)

1. A spherical body; a sphere, especially one of the celestial spheres; a sun, planet, or star
   • In the small orb of one particular tear.c. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry...

   Synonyms:

   ball, globe, sphere

2. Celestial sphere; 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 structural motif or finial in the shape of a sphere
4. An orbit of an heavenly body
   • The schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics, and epicycles, and such engines of orbs.1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Superstition”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC
5. (rare) The time period of an orbit
   • 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.1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V

   Synonyms:

   year

6. (poetic) The eye, seen as a luminous and spherical entity
   • A drop serene hath quenched their orbs.1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...

   Synonyms:

   eye

See all 16 meanings of orb