Word Finder - firmament

definition

(usually uncountable) The vault of the heavens, where the clouds, sun, moon, and stars can be seen; the heavens, the sky.

synonyms

• lift
• welkin

definition

The field or sphere of an activity or interest.

example

the international fashion firmament

definition

In the geocentric Ptolemaic system, the eighth celestial sphere which carried the fixed stars; (by extension) any celestial sphere.

definition

(obsolete except biblical) The abode of God and the angels; heaven.

definition

A piece of jewellery worn in a headdress with numerous gems resembling stars in the sky.

definition

A basis or foundation; a thing which lends strength or support.

definition

The act or process of making firm or strengthening.

The Aegean Sea occupied the centre of the map, while the line where ocean and firmament seemed to meet represented an enlarged horizon.

To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy, it seemed that if they admitted that truth it would destroy faith in God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the son of Nun.

Then God created light, and day and night before he had created a firmament or a sun.

By Ur, Ruha, while P'tahil was engaged in his work of creation, became mother of three sets of seven, twelve and five sons respectively; all were translated by P'tahil to the heavenly firmament (like the Archons of Mani), the first group forming the planets and the next the signs of the zodiac, while the third is as yet undetermined.

In ancient astronomy the firmament was the eighth sphere containing the fixed stars surrounding the seven spheres of the planets.

The ceiling was made to symbolize the firmament.

This second matter is atmosphere or firmament, which envelops and revolves around the central accumulation of first matter.

But in other cases the encrusted star settles in that portion of the revolving vortex which has a velocity equivalent to its own, and so continues to revolve in the vortex, wrapped in its own firmament.

According to Aristotle, "the first of Eleatic unitarians was not careful to say whether the unity which he postulated was finite or infinite, but, contemplating the whole firmament, declared that the One is God."

One of them, Kubera, the god of wealth, is a new figure; whilst another, Varuna, the most spiritual and ethical of Vedic deities - the king of the gods and the universe; the nightly, star-spangled firmament - has become the Indian Neptune, the god of waters.

In many cases the Sky has been already resolved into the visible firmament and its lord and owner, like the Yoruban Olorun or the Finnic Ukko.

Recitative (" And God made the firmament ") Bass trombone and contrabassoon act as bass to wind band.

It begins by telling us that we had night and day before we even had a firmament.

The spangled firmament is but the outside and pavement of that house where Christ and the saints meet.

This golden dematerialized light replaces the starry firmament or the picturesque landscape.

Part of the explanation is that we have not fully understood how the political firmament has been shifting underneath our feet.

There is no more firmament, eight pages of dense and complex directions, is the result of Artaud's work.

Synopsis Silence is like a huge expanse of blue black firmament where on a master artist creates most beautiful patterns.

Again, Aristotle's description of Xenophanes as the first of the Eleatic unitarians does not necessarily imply that the unity asserted by Xenophanes was the unity asserted by Parmenides; the phrase, "contemplating the firmament, he declared that the One is God," leaves it doubtful whether Aristotle attributed to Xenophanes any philosophical theory whatever; and the epithet a ypoLKOTEpos discourages the belief that Aristotle regarded Xenophanes as the author of a new and important departure.

The papal brief establishing the hierarchy was dated 29th September 1850, and on 7th October Wiseman wrote a pastoral, dated " from out of the Flaminian Gate " - a form diplomatically correct, but of bombastic tone for Protestant ears - in which he spoke enthusiastically, if also a little pompously, of the " restoration of Catholic England to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament."

However much we may admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds.

The so-called Spectre Huntsman of the Malay Peninsula is said to be a man who scours the firmament with his dogs, vainly seeking for what he could not find on earth - a buck mouse-deer pregnant with male offspring; but he seems to be a living man; there is no statement that he ever died, nor yet that he is a spirit.

Some chapters describe the manner in which he passes from earth to heaven and becomes a star in the firmament, others deal with the food and drink necessary for his continued existence after death, and others again with the royal prerogatives which he hopes still to enjoy; many are directed against the bites of snakes and stings of scorpions.

It was thus used as a name for the firmament, and in Christian literatureforthe dwelling-place of God and the blessed, and as the source of light.

Its not often that true genius graces this firmament that we call Earth.

But Harry Potter is only one bright star in a glittering literary firmament.

He was, in scholarly terms, perhaps the brightest star in even that bright firmament of Univ Fellows.

He is one of the very major and historically innovative stars in the jazz firmament still active today.

Tien was originally the actual firmament.

After all, the dissolute Glimmer Twins of the post-Britpop firmament made no secret of their sources on that eponymous first album.

His immediate successors, being men of humble origin and submissive character, made no pretensions to such an exalted position, but when the haughty, ambitious and energetic Nikon, who enjoyed in large measure the affection and favour of the devout Tsar Alexius, became patriarch, he took Philaret as his model, and propounded, like the popes in western Europe, the doctrine that the spiritual is higher than the temporal power, the former corresponding to the sun and the latter to the moon in the firmament.