GALAXY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Galaxy

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/gˈæləksi/ Listen

noun

Galaxy n. (pl. galaxies)

(Astron.) The Milky Way, that luminous tract, or belt, which is seen at night stretching across the heavens, and which is composed of innumerable stars, so distant and blended as to be distinguishable only with the telescope.

A very large collection of stars comparable in size to the Milky Way system, held together by gravitational force and separated from other such star systems by large distances of mostly empty space. Galaxies vary widely in shape and size, the most common nearby galaxies being over 70,000 light years in diameter and separated from each other by even larger distances. The number of stars in one galaxy varies, and may extend into the hundreds of billions.

A splendid or impressive assemblage of persons or things; as, a galaxy of movie stars.

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Etymology of 'Galaxy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Galaxy" Quotes from Famous Books

... trace the dipper and find the North Star, but he regrouped most of the constellations to suit himself, and was able to see the outline of a wolf or the head of an Indian that covered half the sky whenever he chose. He wondered what had become of Orion, whose brilliant galaxy of stars appeals to every boy's fancy. It had vanished since the spring. In it he had always recognized the form of a brig he had seen hove-to in Portsmouth Harbor—high poop, skyward-sticking bowsprit and ominous, even row of gun-ports where she carried her carronades—three ...

— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... were arched as for archery; her breath breathed ambergris and perfumery and her lips were sugar to taste and carnelian to see. Her stature was straight as the letter I[FN150] and her face shamed the noon sun's radiancy; and she was even as a galaxy, or a dome with golden marquetry or a bride displayed in choicest finery or a noble maid of Araby.[FN151] Right well of her sang the ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... upon her ear, "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder," she raises her eyes upwards, with a look of melancholy, as tears, like pearls, glisten in her soft expressive eyes. Her heart is moved with deeper emotion than this display of southern galaxy can produce. The combination of circumstances that has brought her to the altar, the decline of fortune, perhaps disgrace, worked upon her mind. It is that which has consigned her to the arms of ...

— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... met her earlier—he might to-day be one of that brilliant galaxy of poets whose music the whole world honored. Oh! the wasted years of his life, and his half-hearted attempts to give to the world those wonderful children of his brain! He had loved and been jealous ...

— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... what's the use of spending one's best years succeeding in everything except the things that are worth while? I'll be thirty sooner than I care to say, and—oh, well, you won't understand. You'll sit down there, with the Southern Cross and the rest of the infernal astronomical galaxy looking down on you, and the Indians chanting in the village, and you will think I have grown sentimental. I have not. You and I down there have been looking at the world through the reverse end of the glass. It's a bully old world, Hal, and this is ...

— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

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