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.

orb (genitive orvu, partitive orbu)

1. orphan

• “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