The Egyptian ruling dynasty of peoples who held the given name Ptolemy.
Used in a Sentence
ptolemy
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for ptolemy.
Editorial note
It's a cheap hack, and it's the flaw that drove Copernicus away from Ptolemy in the first place.
Examples16
Definitions4
Parts of speech1
Quick take
The Egyptian ruling dynasty of peoples who held the given name Ptolemy.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of ptolemy gathered in one view.
A male given name from Ancient Greek of Greek origin, borne by historical persons in ancient Egypt.
Claudius Ptolemaeus (c. 90 – c. 168 AD), a Greek-speaking mathematician, geographer, astronomer, and astrologer who lived in the Hellenistic culture of Alexandria in Roman Egypt. His most important works were the Almagest and the Geography
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for ptolemy.
noun
The Egyptian ruling dynasty of peoples who held the given name Ptolemy.
noun
A male given name from Ancient Greek of Greek origin, borne by historical persons in ancient Egypt.
noun
Claudius Ptolemaeus (c. 90 – c. 168 AD), a Greek-speaking mathematician, geographer, astronomer, and astrologer who lived in the Hellenistic culture of Alexandria in Roman Egypt. His most important works were the Almagest and the Geography
noun
Ptolemy I Soter ("Ptolemy the Savior", 367 BC—283 BC), a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great who was the ruler of Egypt (323 B.C.E—283 B.C.E) and founder of the Ptolemaic Empire. In 305 BC he took the role of King.
Example sentences
It's a cheap hack, and it's the flaw that drove Copernicus away from Ptolemy in the first place.
Scientists since Ptolemy created extraordinarily complex epicycle models to explain the movement of planetary bodies from a geocentric perspective.
By this standard Galen condemns modern medicine and Ptolemy makes physics a joke.
There is little doubt that Ptolemy I controlled his body and buried it in Egypt.
The geocentric model is due to Ptolemy and Aristotle, Greek philosopher/scientists pre-dating Christianity by centuries who were both probably almost completely unaware of the Jews.
They should try to measure it the way Ptolemy did!
Top marks for Ptolemy (I think that's the more usual spelling in English?) citations.
The underlying data here comes from the Ptolemy instrument, a gas chromatograph mass-spectrometer (ion trap, in this case) which can measure ratios of molecules in a range of 14 to 140 Da.
This would conflict with the generally accepted story, that the Greek general Ptolemy took Alexander's body with him back to Egypt, where it was used to bring legitimacy to his new regime.
Curious to find out if the Ptolemy data that came back was of anything useful (as I understand it, Ptolemy's task was to measure isotope ratios so that we could see if the water composition on the comet was at all similar to that on Earth).
Quote examples
Ptolemy II offers a variety of underlying computation models to execute the "program graph".
-- Paul Halmos "There is no Royal Road to geometry," -- Euclid, in reply to King Ptolemy's request for an easier way of learning mathematics.
"Euclid is said to have replied to King Ptolemy's request for an easier way of learning mathematics that 'there is no royal road to geometry'" Math education could certainly use more fun, and I think most teachers who love the subject and are skilled (if not talented) mathematicians are capable of making it more fun and relevant.
Proper noun examples
The point still stands that Copernicus transcended his time, but he was really riding on the coattails of Ptolemy's genius.
The notion that north should always be up and east at the right was established by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy.
Before Copernicus, most people used Ptolemy's epicycles to model the movement of planetary bodies.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use ptolemy in a sentence?
It's a cheap hack, and it's the flaw that drove Copernicus away from Ptolemy in the first place.
What does ptolemy mean?
The Egyptian ruling dynasty of peoples who held the given name Ptolemy.
What part of speech is ptolemy?
ptolemy is commonly used as noun.