Ptolemy

[ tol-uh-mee ]

noun

, plural Ptol·e·mies

1. Claudius Ptolemaeus, flourished a.d. 127–151, Hellenistic mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in Alexandria.
2. any of the kings of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt 323–30 b.c.

Ptolemy

/ ˈtɒlɪmɪ /

noun

1. Ptolemy2nd century2nd centuryMGreekSCIENCE: astronomerSCIENCE: mathematicianGEOGRAPHY: geographer Latin name Claudius Ptolemaeus. 2nd century ad , Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer. His Geography was the standard geographical textbook until the discoveries of the 15th century. His system of astronomy (see Ptolemaic system ), as expounded in the Almagest, remained undisputed until the Copernican system was evolved

Ptolemy

/ tŏl′ə-mē /

1. Greek astronomer and mathematician who based his astronomy on the belief that all heavenly bodies revolved around Earth. Ptolemy's model of the solar system endured until the 16th century when Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the heavenly bodies in the solar system orbited the Sun.

Ptolemy

¹

1. An ancient Greek astronomer, living in Egypt (see also Egypt ), who proposed a way of calculating the movements of the planets on the assumption that they, along with the sun and the stars , revolved around the Earth . ( See Ptolemaic universe .)

Ptolemy

²

1. An ancient Greek astronomer, living in Egypt (see also Egypt ), who proposed a way of calculating the movements of the planets on the assumption that they, along with the sun and the stars , were embedded in clear spheres that revolved around the Earth . The system of Ptolemy, called the Ptolemaic universe , prevailed in astronomy for nearly fifteen hundred years, until the modern model of the solar system , with the sun at the center and the planets in motion, was developed from the ideas of Copernicus .

Example Sentences

Clausen believes the chart’s author conflated Ptolemy with a dynasty of Greek kings who had ruled Egypt.

From Los Angeles Times

A few centuries later, another Greek astronomer, Ptolemy, attempted to classify stars using a six-tier scale, assigning the brightest stars to the first tier and the faintest ones to the sixth.

From Scientific American

Egyptologists have confirmed that she was Macedonian-Greek on the side of her father, Ptolemy XII, but her maternal heritage is less clear; little is known about her birth mother’s ethnic origin.

From Los Angeles Times

Born to Egyptian king Ptolemy XII Auletes and an unknown mother in 69 B.C.,

From National Geographic

Cleopatra, the last queen of a Greek-speaking dynasty founded by Alexander the Great’s Macedonian general Ptolemy, was born in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria in 69 BC.

From Los Angeles Times