Search Result for "the seven sisters":

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Pleiades \Ple"ia*des\ (?; 277), n. pl. [L., fr. Gr. (?)] 1. (Myth.) The seven daughters of Atlas and the nymph Pleione, fabled to have been made by Jupiter a constellation in the sky. [1913 Webster] 2. (Astron.) A group of small stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus; -- called also the seven sisters. --Job xxxviii. 31. [1913 Webster] Note: Alcyone, the brightest of these, a star of the third magnitude, was considered by M[aum]dler the central point around which our universe is revolving, but such a notion has been thoroughly discounted by modern observations. Only six pleiads are distinctly visible to the naked eye, whence the ancients supposed that a sister had concealed herself out of shame for having loved a mortal, Sisyphus. [1913 Webster +PJC]