orb

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɔɹb/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɔːb/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)b

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

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

orb (plural orbs)

1. A spherical body; a sphere, especially one of the celestial spheres; a sun, planet, or star
   • c. 1607–1608, William Shakeſpeare, The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: Imprinted at London for Henry Goſſon,  […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act LOVER'S COMPLAINT, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:

     In the small orb of one particular tear.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, 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 as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

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

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. (architecture) A structural motif or finial in the shape of a sphere
4. An orbit of an heavenly body
   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Superstition”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:

     The schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics, and epicycles, and such engines of orbs.

   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     You seem to me as Dian in her orb.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, 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 as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

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

5. (rare) The time period of an orbit
   • 1667, John Milton, 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.

6. (poetic) The eye, seen as a luminous and spherical entity
   • 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 as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     A drop serene hath quenched their orbs.

   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Assignation”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 260:

     Painfully, he forced his hot eyelids to unclose, and his distended orbs sought for some object whereon to fix; they met the patch of grass, yet red with the blood of Walter Maynard.

7. (poetic) Any revolving circular body, such as a wheel
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, 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 as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     The orbs Of his fierce chariot rolled.

8. (rare) A sphere of action.
   • 1815, William Wordsworth, Essay, Supplementary to the Preface:

     By what fatality the orb of my genius […] acts upon these men like the moon upon a certain description of patients, it would be irksome to inquire

   • c. 1607–1608, William Shakeſpeare, The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: Imprinted at London for Henry Goſſon,  […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act 1, scene 2]:

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

9. A globus cruciger; a ceremonial sphere used to represent royal or imperial power
10. A translucent sphere appearing in flash photography (Orb (optics))
11. (military) A body of soldiers drawn up in a circle, as for defence, especially infantry to repel cavalry.
12. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (astrology) Amount of deviation from the closest perfect aspect.

• (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

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.
   • 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, 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 as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Let each
     His adamantine coat gird well, and each
     Fit well his helm, gripe fast his orbed shield

   • 1842, James Russell Lowell, sonnet:

     a full-orbed sun

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XXIV, page 41:

     And is it that the haze of grief
     ⁠Hath stretch’d my former joy so great? […]
     Or that the past will always win
     ⁠A glory from its being far;
     ⁠And orb into the perfect star
     We saw not, when we moved therein?

2. (poetic, intransitive) To become round like an orb.
3. (poetic, transitive) To encircle; to surround; to enclose.
   • 1717, Joseph Addison, Metamorphoses:

     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.
   • 1845, Robert Willis, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral:

     small blank windows or panels, for in later times such panels were called orbs, blind windows

• “orb”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• BOR, Bor, Bor., ROB, Rob, bor, bro, bro., rob

• orbu

From Latin orbus. Compare Romanian orb.

orb m (feminine singular orbe, masculine plural orghi, feminine plural orbi)

1. blind
2. (figurative) ignorant
3. (figurative) uncultivated, unrefined, uncivilized

• urbari
• urbiatse

• chior

Inherited from Old Catalan orb (also spelled horp), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos (“orphan”). Compare Occitan òrb, Italian orbo, Romanian orb.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˈɔrp]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈɔɾp]

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

1. blind

   Synonym: cec

orb m (uncountable)

1. a fungal disease of wheat and other cereals

• “orb” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “orb”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “orb” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “orb” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Borrowed from Finnish orpo, from Proto-Finnic *orpoi, from Proto-Finno-Ugric *orpa, borrowed from Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hárbʰas. Cognate with Hungarian árva.

PIE word
*h₃órbʰos

orb (genitive orvu, partitive orbu)

1. orphan

Declension of orb (ÕS type 22e/riik, b-v gradation)
		singular	plural
nominative		orb	orvud
accusative	nom.
	gen.	orvu
genitive			orbude
partitive		orbu	orbe orbusid
illative		orbu orvusse	orbudesse orvesse
inessive		orvus	orbudes orves
elative		orvust	orbudest orvest
allative		orvule	orbudele orvele
adessive		orvul	orbudel orvel
ablative		orvult	orbudelt orvelt
translative		orvuks	orbudeks orveks
terminative		orvuni	orbudeni
essive		orvuna	orbudena
abessive		orvuta	orbudeta
comitative		orvuga	orbudega

• “orb”, in [EKSS] Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [Descriptive Dictionary of the Estonian Language] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2009
• “orb”, in [ÕS] Eesti õigekeelsussõnaraamat ÕS 2018 [Estonian Spelling Dictionary] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2018, →ISBN
• orb in Sõnaveeb (Eesti Keele Instituut)

Inherited from Latin orbus, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos (“orphan”). Compare Italian orbo. Doublet of rob.

• IPA^(key): /orb/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

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