the seven sisters

1 definition found

the seven sisters - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Pleiades \Ple"ia*des\ (?; 277), n. pl. [L., fr. Gr. (?)]
     1. (Myth.) The seven daughters of Atlas and the nymph
        Pleione, fabled to have been made by Jupiter a
        constellation in the sky.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Astron.) A group of small stars in the neck of the
        constellation Taurus; -- called also the seven sisters.
        --Job xxxviii. 31.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: Alcyone, the brightest of these, a star of the third
           magnitude, was considered by M[aum]dler the central
           point around which our universe is revolving, but such
           a notion has been thoroughly discounted by modern
           observations. Only six pleiads are distinctly visible
           to the naked eye, whence the ancients supposed that a
           sister had concealed herself out of shame for having
           loved a mortal, Sisyphus.
           [1913 Webster +PJC]