universe
Pluraluniverses
- 1The entirety of everything that exists in the cosmos, including all matter, energy, space, and time.
Astronomers estimate that the observable universe contains hundreds of billions of galaxies.
According to relativity, nothing in the universe travels faster than light in a vacuum.
UsageUsually with the: in the universe, the observable universe.
Note
The sum of all things is pictured as a single whole. Every later sense keeps that picture of one complete totality, from everything under consideration to a whole fictional world.
- 2The imaginary world in which a work or series of fiction takes place, especially one shared by several connected stories, films, or games.
Tolkien's universe includes invented languages and thousands of years of fictional history.
Each novel explores a different corner of the same sprawling universe.
UsageOften after a name: the Star Wars universe, the Marvel universe.
- 3A complete, self-contained realm of space and time similar to our own, regarded as one component of a larger whole known as the multiverse.
Each universe in the multiverse could have its own physical constants.
If other universes exist, we may never be able to observe them directly.
UsageCommon in a parallel universe and other universes.
Note
Here the word gains a real plural. When it meant everything there was, there could be no second one. Once cosmology began to speculate about many self-contained domains, universes became countable, each potentially with its own physical constants.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Under the definition encompassing everything that exists, there cannot be a second universe. spacecentre.nz
- Proposed universes can have different physical constants. arxiv.org
- 4The complete set of items, people, options, or observations under consideration in a discussion, analysis, or study; in statistics and market research, the whole population from which samples are drawn.
The committee narrowed the universe of candidates from two hundred to twelve.
Within the universe of apartments in our price range, only three allow pets.
UsageOften a universe of + plural noun: a universe of candidates, a universe of options.
Similarpool, field, population, set
Note
The cosmic word stretches here to any bounded field of choice. In "all this universe of possibilities," the whole field shrinks to one feasible option.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The quoted phrase occurs in an example sentence that narrows the possibilities to one feasible option; no speaker or author is attributed. en.wiktionary.org
- 5A person's entire world, understood as the perspective, concerns, or social setting that defines their life.
When the company folded, it felt as though her universe had collapsed overnight.
The boarding school became a self-contained universe with its own rituals and politics.
UsageOften my whole universe: a bigger, more dramatic word than world.
Similarworld
Note
Swapping it in for world turns up the volume. If something rocked my world, saying it rocked my universe raises the stakes for comic effect. The bigger word suggests a whole self-contained realm of concerns, which is why it also suits a closed community with its own rituals.
- 6A deity identified with the sum of everything that exists, rather than a being separate from creation.
In her belief, the universe itself listens and answers, needing no temples or scriptures.
Followers of the movement worship the universe as a single divine whole.
UsageOften in thank the universe or the universe wants you to do something.
Note
In pantheism the cosmos is not made by a god; it is the god. Everyday speech borrows the idea when it gives the universe wants and intentions, as in "the universe wants you to succeed," treating it as a benevolent agent. In that use it takes verbs of will and attention that the physical cosmos never would.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Pantheism identifies the cosmos with God rather than with a creation separate from God. en.wikipedia.org
Less common meaning
- 7The Earth itself, conceived of as the great sphere of the world on which all people live.
Note
Earlier English could use the word for the earth itself, the globe a ship sails around. John Ogilby's 1669 translation of John Nievhoff says Magellan found his strait in 1520 during his "Circumnavigation of the Universe," a phrase that now sounds impossible.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Universe formerly meant the Earth or globe; this sense is archaic. en.wiktionary.org
- Ogilby's English translation was first published in 1669. archive.org
- John Ogilby translated the work attributed to John Nievhoff. en.wiktionary.org
- The translation says Magellan found the strait in 1520 during his “Circumnavigation of the Universe.” en.wiktionary.org
Practice
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Origin
Latin vertō ("to turn") has the past participle versus ("turned"). Joined with uni-, a form of unus ("one"), it made universus ("all together, whole, entire"), literally "turned or combined into one," whose neuter universum meant "all things, as a whole." This passed into Old French as univers and into Middle English as universe.