the theory of planetary motion developed by Ptolemy from the hypotheses of earlier philosophers, stating that the earth lay at the centre of the universe with the sun, the moon, and the known planets revolving around it in complicated orbits. Beyond the largest of these orbits lay a sphere of fixed stars
See also epicycle (sense 1), Compare Copernican system
Ptolemaic system in American English
the theory, systematized by Ptolemy, postulating the earth as the center or fixed point of the universe, around which the celestial bodies move