orrery

[Dave Monroe]

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

This week's theme
Words not named after the person they should be

This week's words
McKenzie
orrery

orrery

PRONUNCIATION:
(OR-uh-ree)

MEANING:
noun: A mechanical model of the solar system that represents the
relative motions of the planets around the sun.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (1676-1731), who was given one
of those models by John Rowley, a London instrument-maker. They were
invented by George Graham c. 1700. The device would have been better
named either after its inventor, Graham, or its maker, Rowley.

USAGE:
"The lamp at the center of the orrery demonstrates the way the sun
lends light to the planets."
James Fenton; Sheridan the Revolutionary; The New York Review of
Books; Feb 4, 1999.

"Even the nation's attic couldn't contain a 650-yard-long model of the
solar system, so the Smithsonian Institution has put it outdoors, on
the National Mall. 'Voyage: A Journey Through Our Solar System', a new
permanent installation, represents the solar system at one
10-billionth its actual size. ...
"The stations within this giant orrery also feature porcelain
information plaques with high-resolution, full-color images of the
planets."
Eric P Nash; A Smithsonian Spin Through the Cosmos; The New York
Times; Feb 10, 2002.

http://wordsmith.org/words/orrery.html

Explore "orrery" in the Visual Thesaurus

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/landing/?ad=awad&utm_medium=default&utm_campaign=VT&utm_source=awad&w1=orrery

orrery

English

Etymology

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

orrery (plural orreries)

   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

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/orrery

Orrery

94; an apparatus showing the relative positions and motions of bodies
in the solar system by balls moved by wheelwork; 209; of Engagement,
536

http://www.thomaspynchon.com/mason-dixon/alpha/o.html