DictionaryAI

galaxy

GAL-uhk-see/ˈɡæl.ək.si/

Pluralgalaxies

Verbgalaxies, galaxying, galaxied

6 meanings of galaxy

Practice

  1. 1
    star systemnouncountable
    Any of the billions of independent systems in the known universe, each a coherent mass of millions or billions of stars together with dust, black holes and other matter.

    Astronomers spotted a faint galaxy whose light had traveled for billions of years to reach Earth.

    When two galaxies collide, their stars rarely hit one another, because the distances between them are so vast.

    Note

    Gravity is what makes each one a single system rather than a loose scatter of stars, and astronomers sort them by shape into spirals, ellipticals and irregulars. The word itself began closer to home: Greek galaxías, the "milky circle," first named the band across our sky, and only later the whole class, of which our own is one member.

  2. 2
    brilliant groupnounfigurativelycountable
    A gathering of people or things thought of as brilliant or dazzling.

    The charity gala drew a galaxy of Hollywood stars.

    The museum's new wing displays a galaxy of Renaissance masterpieces.

    Similarhost, array, constellation

    Note

    The figure is happiest with people already called stars: in 1936 Thrilling Wonder Stories promised a galaxy of science fiction stars. It runs a galaxy of followed by a plural, and it praises the whole gathering at once, which gives it the warm ring of a billing rather than a neutral description.

  3. 3
    space printnoun
    A print or pattern that recalls a galaxy, usually made of blended, semi-opaque patches of bright color on a dark background.

    The shop's best seller this year was a hoodie in a swirling galaxy print.

    She repainted her bedroom ceiling with a galaxy design so it would feel like sleeping under the night sky.

    Note

    The pattern name works as a modifier, standing before the thing it decorates: galaxy wallpaper, galaxy leggings, a galaxy blanket, galaxy patterned things. It belongs to clothes, crafts and room decor, and much like leopard or zebra it borrows something seen in the world as the name of a look.

  4. 4
    fill with starsverbtransitive
    To supply or fill something, such as a sky, with galaxies.

    We lay on the dunes, far from any town, beneath a sky galaxied to the horizon.

    The planetarium dome, galaxied with projected light, drew gasps from the children.

    Similarspangle

    Note

    Poets use this verb, usually in the participle galaxied, for a sky or a dome thick with stars. John Edmund Reade's Italy (1838) pictures heaven with her flashing hair "all galaxied with stars", and in 2018 Adrian G. R. Scott still uses the participle for a sky full of stars.

Less common meanings

  1. 5
    band across skynounarchaic
    The Milky Way: the band of densely packed stars that appears across the night sky as seen from Earth.

    On clear summer nights the shepherds lay on the hillside and traced the galaxy from one horizon to the other.

    Grecian imagination ascribed to the galaxy or milky way an origin in the teeming breast of the queen of heaven[.]
    1833, Thomas Keightley, Fairy Mythology
    Note

    The word was milk before it was stars: Greek galaxías is short for "milky circle", from gála, milk, and Thomas Keightley in 1833 recalls the Greek story that the band flowed from the breast of the queen of heaven. Donne still calls it the Galaxie in 1633. Today the band is the Milky Way, and a modern reader will take galaxy in the astronomer's sense.

  2. 6
    gather togetherverbarchaic
    To gather things together into a single shining whole.
    How dazzling must their brightness be when they are galaxied in a single bosom!
    1844, Horace Smith, Arthur Arundel: A Tale of the English Revolution
    The brilliancies on one page of Lalla Roohk ^([sic]) would have sufficed to establish that very reputation which has been in a great measure self-dimned by the galaxied lustre of the entire book.
    1841, Edgar Allan Poe, “Review of New Books”
    Note

    The figurative partner of the starry verb: virtues or brilliancies are galaxied into one luster, the way scattered stars blur into a single band of light. Cotton Mather has it in 1702 and Edgar Allan Poe in 1841, both in elevated prose. Today it reads as deliberately ornate, a word to recognize in older texts rather than to use in new writing.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of galaxy apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

From Middle English galaxye, from Old French galaxie, from Latin galaxias, from Ancient Greek γαλαξίας (galaxías, "Milky Way"). This was a shortening of γαλαξίας κύκλος (galaxías kúklos, "milky circle"), from γάλα (gála, "milk").