orrery

WOTD - 8 March 2006    

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

Named after Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (1676-1731), for whom such a device was made.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /'ɒ.ɹə.ɹi/, SAMPA: /"Q.r@.ri/

a small orrery

Noun

Singular orrery

Plural orrer

orrery (orrer)

1. a clockwork model of the solar system

   • 1985: To which his answer was: why, that God is eternal motion, Lacy. This is his first orrery. — John Fowles, A Maggot
   • 1997: Ethelmer for a split second is gazing straight up into her nostrils, one of which now flares into pink illumination as Pitt’s Taper sets alight the central Lanthorn of the Orrery, representing the Sun. The other Planets wait, all but humming, taut within their spidery Linkages back to the Crank-Shaft and the Crank, held in the didactic Grasp of the Revd Cherrycoke. — Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon

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