orbis

Latin

Etymology

Of uncertain origin. May stem from Proto-Indo-European *h₃erbʰis (“circle, orb”) or from *h₁órǵʰis (“testicle”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈor.bis/, [ˈɔrbɪs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈor.bis/, [ˈɔrbis]

Noun

orbis m (genitive orbis); third declension

1. circle, ring
2. of things that return at a certain period of time, a rotation, round, circuit
3. an orb (sphere)
4. a country, territory or region
5. a disc or disc-shaped object
7. the Earth, the world, the globe [often written as orbis terrarum]

   totus orbis terrarum

   the whole wide world

   • c. 52 BCE, Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico VII.29:

     cuius consensui ne orbis quidem terrarum possit obsistere

     the union of which not even the whole world could withstand

   • 8 CE, Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.5–7:

     Ante mare et terrās et quod tegit omnia caelum
     ūnus erat tōtō nātūrae vultus in orbe,
     quem dīxēre chaos: […]

     Before the sea and the lands and the sky that covers over all things,
     there was one face of nature in the whole world,
     which they called chaos: […]

Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem, ablative singular in -e or occasionally -ī).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	orbis	orbēs
Genitive	orbis	orbium
Dative	orbī	orbibus
Accusative	orbem	orbēs orbīs
Ablative	orbe orbī	orbibus
Vocative	orbis	orbēs

Synonyms

• (circle): circus, circulus

Derived terms

• orbita

Descendants

• → English: orb
• French: orbe
• Italian: orbe
• Portuguese: orbe
• Spanish: orbe

References

• “orbis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “orbis”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• orbis in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• orbis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the earth; the glob: orbis terrae, terrarum
    
  • the horizon: orbis finiens (Div. 2. 44. 92)
    
  • the milky way: orbis lacteus
    
  • the zodiac: orbis signifer
    
  • a zone: orbis, pars (terrae), cingulus
    
  • the temperate zone: orbis medius
    
  • the empire reaches to the ends of the world: imperium orbis terrarum terminis definitur
    
  • to form a square: orbem facere (Sall. Iug. 97. 5)
    
  • to form a square: in orbem consistere
    
• “orbis”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Watkins, Calvert, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000.
• Online Latin Dictionary, Olivetti