Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A comprehensive treatise on astronomy, geography, and mathematics compiled by Ptolemy about AD 150.
- noun Any of several medieval treatises concerned with astronomy or alchemy.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The greatest work on astronomy before Copernicus, written in the second century
a. d. by the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The celebrated work of Ptolemy of Alexandria, which contains nearly all that is known of the astronomical observations and theories of the ancients. The name was extended to other similar works.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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From this it derived the word Almagest, by which Ptolemy's work continued to be known among the Arabs, and subsequently among Europeans when the book again became known in the West.
A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume I: The Beginnings of Science 1904
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The Almagest; the Astronomy or was probably so called to distinguish it from the or Mathematics of Ptolemy; it was preserved and communicated to Europe by the Arabs, and the name Almagest is formed of the Arabic article al, and the Greek.
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'Almagest' from Arabic into Latin was accomplished by order of the
The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' Thomas Nathaniel Orchard
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The famous "Almagest" of Ptolemy, the most important work of ancient astronomy, was translated from a Greek manuscript, as early as 1160, by a medical student of Salerno. 73
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He furnished one of the first translations of the famous "Almagest" of Ptolemy, which opened the eyes of his contemporaries to the value of the Alexandrian astronomy.
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The astronomy of the "Almagest" explained all astronomical phenomena with a precision which for a long time seemed satisfactory, accounting for them by combinations of circular motions; but, of the circles described, some were eccentric to the
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913
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Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemæus of Pelusium) constituted a new astronomical system that claimed the Earth to be immovable in the centre of the universe; a system that seemed, as it were, to reach its completion when, between a.d. 142 and 146, Ptolemy wrote a work called Megale mathematike syntaxis tes astronomias, its Arabian title being transliterated by the Christians of the Middle Ages, who named it "Almagest".
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913
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"Almagest", but also the entire works of Avicenna, into Latin.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI 1840-1916 1913
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The revelations of Greek thought on the nature of the exterior world ended with the "Almagest", which appeared about a.d. 145, and then began the decline of ancient learning.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913
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For instance, they compiled many abridgments of Ptolemy's "Almagest", made numerous observations, and constructed a great many astronomical tables, but added nothing essential to the theories of astronomical motion; their only innovation in this respect, and, by the way, quite an unfortunate one, was the doctrine of the oscillatory motion of the equinoctial points, which the Middle Ages ascribed to Thâbit ibn Kûrrah
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913
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