| 释义 |
▪ I. orbit, n.|ˈɔːbɪt|
[ad. L. orbita wheel-track, orbit, f. orbis wheel, circle: ‘orbita vestigium carri, ab orbe rotæ dicta’ Isidore xv. xvi. 13. The sense ‘orbit’ of the moon, etc., was also class. L.; that of ‘eye-cavity’ med.L., also Fr., 14th c.]
1. a. Anat. The bony cavity of the skull containing the eye and its appendages (muscles, glands, etc.); the eye-socket.
[c1400Lanfranc's Cirurg. 241 He goiþ out of þe scolle boon, & entriþ into orbitam, þat is þe holow place þat þe yȝe sitt on.] 1548–77Vicary Anat. iii. 27 The Coronal bone, in which is y⊇ Orbyts or holes of the Eyes. 1725Pope Odyss. ix. 391 In the broad orbit of his monstrous eye. 1767Gooch Treat. Wounds I. 331 A patient..who..had a piece of wood forced into the orbit of one of his eyes. 1879G. C. Harlan Eyesight ii. 21 The orbit, in which the ball is lodged, is a hollow cone of bone with the base directed forwards and outwards.
b. Zool. The border, or part surrounding the eye in a bird, insect, etc.
1774Pennant Tour Scotl. in 1772. 109 The orbits of the eyes are black. 1825Waterton Wand. S. Amer. iii. iii. 256 The orbits scarlet and the irides white. 1892Syd. Soc. Lex., Orbit..In Zoology, the skin surrounding the eye of a bird.
¶c. (By confusion with orb n.1 10.) The eye-ball; the eye.
1728Young Love Fame v. 7 Or roll the lucid orbit of an eye; Or, in full joy, elaborate a sigh. 1850Tennyson In Mem. lxxxvii, When we saw The God within him light his face,..and glow In azure orbits heavenly-wise; And over those ethereal eyes The bar of Michael Angelo. 1873Browning Red Cott. Nt.-cap iii. 738 That man will..through each black Castilian orbit, see into your soul.
2. Astron. The path or course of a heavenly body; the curved path described by a planet or comet about the sun, by a satellite about its primary, or by one star of a binary system about the other. (Rarely applied to the (apparent) course of the sun in the heavens, usually called the ecliptic.) More recently also of artificial satellites and spacecraft. Also, one complete passage around the orbited body.
1696Phillips (ed. 5), Orbit, is properly the Tract left by a Wheel in the Road; but Astronomers use the word to signifie the way or course of the Sun, particularly called the Ecliptick, as also of any other Planet moving on according to the Circle of its Latitude. 1726tr. Gregory's Astron. 174 Every Planet describes an Orbit about the Sun. 1812–16Playfair Nat. Phil. II. 91 Apparent Orbit of the Sun. 1871Tyndall Fragm. Sci. (1879) I. i. 20 The earth's orbit is an ellipse. 1951Jrnl. Brit. Interplanetary Soc. X. 219 He predicted the establishment of ‘Earth satellite vehicle’ rockets in orbits 25,000 miles from the Earth within about 10 years. 1951A. C. Clarke Sands of Mars vii. 82 They were now floating round Mars in a free orbit. 1962J. Glenn in Into Orbit 144 Al would also give me the exact times at which the retro-rockets would have to be fired to start bringing the capsule home at the end of one, two and three orbits. 1974Sci. Amer. Jan. 115/1 In its polar orbit it swings close to the North Pole, then moves south across the Equator and finally, having traversed Antarctica, returns north for the next orbit. 1977J. Scott Hot Pursuit x. 90 Tracking stations..spotted it straight away when the orbit altered.
b. fig. and transf.
1759Sterne Tr. Shandy I. xxi, The backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her orbit did the same service in establishing my father's system. 1829I. Taylor Enthus. x. 266 In the remotest orbits of religious feeling. 1831― Edward's Freed. Will Introd. iv. 69 The young horse that, free a-field, makes large orbits over the level mead. 1880Academy 18 Sept. 195 Under ‘rights at rest’ he considers the ‘orbit’ and infringement of each right.
¶c. Confused with orb: see orb n.1 7, 9, 12.
1727De Foe Syst. Magic i. i. (1840) 15 Made immortal at his death, and..exalted to shine in a higher orbit. 1815Scott Guy M. iii, The planets, each, by its own liquid orbit of light, distinguished from the inferior or more distant stars. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 536 He put the moon in the orbit which was nearest to the earth.
d. In extended use: An approximately circular or elliptical path traced by something in motion (e.g. round an atomic nucleus, in a surface wave in a liquid, or in a particle accelerator).
1827[see planet-wheel s.v. planet n.1 5]. 1864W. J. M. Rankine in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. CLIII. 131 The centres of the orbits of the particles in a given surface of equal pressure stand at a higher level than the same particles do when the liquid is still. 1891Sci. Trans. R. Dublin Soc. IV. 599 The dominant orbit of the electron..as affected during the subsequent flight of the molecule by an apsidal perturbation. 1904Phil. Mag. VII. 454 If the spectra of the elements be due to the motion of electrons revolving in circular orbits, as above supposed, several rings of orbits must exist where there are different series of spectra. 1913Bohr in Ibid. XXV. 11 The forces which keep the electrons in their position—or their orbits—inside the atom. 1942J. D. Stranathan ‘Particles’ of Mod. Physics xi. 426 A magnetic field between two peculiarly shaped pole faces serves to guide the electron repeatedly around an orbit in this field. 1962Newnes Conc. Encycl. Nucl. Energy 169/1 As the particle energy rises the radius of curvature of the path in the magnetic field increases and so the particles execute approximately spiral orbits. 1962I. R. & M. W. Williams Basic Nucl. Physics i. 15 The physical significance of ψ..means that the exact position of electrons in an atomic orbit or indeed the exact location of the orbit cannot be precisely defined. 1972M. G. Gross Oceanography ix. 243 In deep water..the water parcels move in nearly stationary circular orbits... The diameter of these orbits at the surface is approximately equal to the wave height.
e. The state of being or moving in an orbit; also fig.; chiefly in in orbit, into orbit (also with intervening qualifier).
1958Spectator 22 Aug. 263/2 The US satellite now in orbit. 1959Economist 21 Feb. 706/2 One observer..describes the stock market as being ‘in orbit’, released from the gravitational pull of the bond market. 1959Daily Tel. 21 Nov. 1/2 The United States put a satellite into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force base in California today. Ibid., Recovery from orbit has never been accomplished by us or Russia. 1961L. Mumford City in Hist. (1966) xvi. 580 Our descendants will perhaps understand our curious willingness to expend billions of dollars to shoot a sacrificial victim into planetary orbit. 1967W. R. Hindmarsh Atomic Spectra ii. 9 If an ion..has, like hydrogen, a single electron in orbit about the nucleus. 1969R. Airth Snatch! x. 99 Morland..said they were great, which sent Giorgio approximately into orbit. 1971Nature 17 Sept. 160/3 A Salyut spacecraft is already in Earth orbit. 1973R. Busby Pattern of Violence v. 81 So Charlie's an acid head... He's probably in orbit by now.
†3. ? An outer flat ring. Obs.
1726Ayliffe Parergon 483 To the end that a Seal may be called an Authentick Seal, it ought to have an Orbit and some Impression thereon.
4. attrib. and Comb.
1862H. Spencer First Princ. ii. x. §83 A slow change in the position of the orbit-plane. 1875Knight Dict. Mech., Orbit-sweeper, [a telescope and bearings] invented by Airy, to follow the inclined path of a comet or planet.
Add: [c indigo][2.] f.[/c] Math. Each of the subsets of a set which are defined by a given permutation group in the sense that every pair of elements of a particular subset is related by some permutation belonging to the group; also, the single subset thus defined which contains a specified element of the set.
1959J. S. Lomont Applications of Finite Groups v. 221 An orbit of a normal subgroup H of G is a maximal set of inequivalent irreducible representations of H which are mutually conjugate relative to G. 1964R. Bercov tr. Wielandt's Finite Permutation Groups i. 4 A constituent GΔ is transitive precisely when Δ is a minimal fixed block (Δ ≠ ϕ) . In this case Δ is called an orbit or set of transitivity of G. 1971Powell & Higman Finite Simple Groups vii. 222 The 12 cosets of L which form an orbit under L. 1981Sci. Amer. Mar. 24/1 With mesons and baryons, double edge flippers and double edge-pair swappers and double corner-pair swappers you have a full set of tools with which to restore any scrambled cube to Start, as long as it belongs to the same orbit as Start.
▪ II. orbit, v.|ˈɔːbɪt|
[f. the n.]
1. trans. To revolve round in an orbit; to travel round.
1946R.A.F. Jrnl. May 169 Orbiting the target at low level, Pathfinders' Master Bomber assessed the T.I. markers. 1949Jrnl. Brit. Interplanetary Soc. VIII. 3 The way to overcome this difficulty is to have the object circle the earth at a greater distance. It might, in fact, be convenient to have it orbit the earth at a distance of 22,200 miles up. 1951A. C. Clarke Sands of Mars xi. 141 Orbiting Saturn was Titan, the largest satellite in the Solar System. 1954N.Y. Times 29 Aug. 39/1 If there are satellites orbiting the earth fairly close to it, the Army Office of Ordnance Research will locate them. 1959D. Beaty Cone of Silence xiv. 154 He had been slowly cruising round Mayfair in the car, orbiting huge squares. 1960Daily Tel. 22 Aug. 1/6 (caption) Television pictures received from space by the Russians of their dogs..as they orbited the earth in a 4½-ton space ship. 1963Ann. Reg. 1962 399 Orbiting the moon, and finally landing from a parking orbit round the earth. 1973Sci. Amer. Dec. 47/1 One cannot be sure that real galaxy pairs orbit each other in the parabolas or elongated ellipses demanded by our models. 1975Times 11 Aug. 10/5 In 1971 and 1972, the next Mariner spacecraft to orbit the planet revealed a new..face of Mars.
2. intr.
a. To move in an orbit. Const. various preps.
1951[see orbital a. 2]. 1955Time 14 Feb. 112/3 When Allingham sketched a sun with planets orbiting round it on a pad, he says, the visitor smiled and pointed to the fourth planet and then to his own space-suited figure. 1957Times 7 Oct. 9/2 The satellite..is orbiting too high to be of maximum value for observations. 1962F. I. Ordway et al. Basic Astronautics i. 3 Manned space capsules have orbited several hundred miles above the Earth. 1970Nature 3 Oct. 11/1 American spy satellites orbiting over the Soviet Union have spotted 18 new sites. 1972Sci. Amer. Nov. 105/3 Earlier investigations..showed..how muonic atoms behave when the muons orbit within the nucleus.
b. To fly in a circle.
1952Sat. Even. Post 27 Dec. 26/3 Clapp broke off and flew south to drop a flare. I orbited just north of the bridge. 1957R. Watson-Watt Three Steps to Victory 315 Dive-bombers and fighters were to orbit as required till they were joined by the slower torpedo-bombers. 1969I. Kemp Brit. G.I. in Vietnam iii. 68 We had been orbiting in our helicopter for about forty-five minutes.
c. To go into orbit. Also fig.
1958Times 30 Aug. 6/1 The Vanguard satellite which failed to orbit on May 27 probably travelled 7,500 miles into the south Atlantic. 1970Daily Tel. 8 June 16/1 The company suspended dealings in March..and they should be resumed by the end of July. The shares should orbit in next to no time. 1970Toronto Daily Star 24 Sept. 22/1 There is no velocity test on the British ball. So, in effect, the manufacturers could improve it to the point where it orbits.
3. trans. To put, send, or place in orbit.
1958Spectator 14 Feb. 192/1 Soon after Explorer was orbited the air below it was filled by television stations with five-minute talks. 1961Listener 20 Apr. 684/1 The news of the first man to be orbited and brought to earth. 1962F. I. Ordway et al. Basic Astronautics ii. 25 By 1962 the two countries had orbited over a hundred objects into space. 1970Nature 13 June 1011/1 France has been orbiting modest satellites with her own launcher. 1973Sci. Amer. Oct. 75/3 Coronagraphs orbited in space can be constructed differently from their ground-based counterparts.
Hence ˈorbited ppl. a., ˈorbiting vbl. n. See also orbiting ppl. a.
1956Spaceflight I. 6/2 Whether we can land on all of them is improbable, but orbiting trips will be made to get a closer look. 1958Engineering 28 Feb. 270/1 A vehicle weighing 2,000 lb. would expend only a further 70 lb. of propellent in accelerating from an orbiting speed of 18,000 m.p.h. to the escape speed of 25,000 m.p.h. 1966Aviation Week & Space Technol. 5 Dec. 22/3 The separately orbited satellite modules could be mothballed in space—fully equipped with all experiments, however—until ready for use. |