Copernican system, theCo‧per‧ni‧can sys‧tem, the /kəʊˈpɜːnɪkən ˌsɪstɪm $ -ˈpɜːr-/ nounthe idea, first suggested by Copernicus, that the Earth and the other planets all travel in circles around the Sun. Before this it was believed, according to the Ptolemaic system, that the Earth was at the centre of the universe.