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Pleiad|ˈplaɪəd|
Pl. Pleiads; more commonly in Lat. and Gr. form Pleiades |ˈplaɪədiːz|; also 4 Pliades, 5 Plyades.
[a. L. Plēïas, Plējas, Plīas, pl. Plēïades etc., a. Gr. Πλειάς, pl. -άδες, Ion. Πληιάς: see -ad; so F. Pléiade, pl. Pléiades.]
Astron. In pl., A close group or cluster of small stars in the constellation Taurus, commonly spoken of as seven, though only six are visible to the average naked eye. (Good eyes on a clear night can make out about nine, while the telescope shows a great number.)
According to Greek Mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, the eldest of whom, Electra, was ‘the lost Pleiad’, and not represented by a star. The seven names, with those of the parents, have since Ricciolo (1665) been individually applied to the nine brightest stars; of these Alcyone is of the third magnitude, Electra and Atlas of the fourth, Merope, Maia, and Taygete of the fifth, Pleione, Celeno, and Asterope, between the sixth and the seventh. Some think that the name was actually derived from πλεῖν to sail, because the season of navigation began with their heliacal rising.
1388Wyclif Job xxxviii. 31 Whether thou schalt mowe ioyne togidere schynynge sterris Pliades [marg. that is, the seuen sterris; 1382 The shynende seue sterres]. 1555Eden Decades 162 The goynge downe of the seuen starres cauled Vergiliae or Pleiades. 1560Bible (Genev.) Job xxxviii. 31 Canst thou restraine the sweete influences of y⊇ Pleiades? or loose the bands of Orion? 1667Milton P.L. vii. 374 The gray Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd, Shedding sweet influence. 1788Gibbon Decl. & F. xliii. IV. 323 The fable of Electra the seventh of the Pleiads. 1817Byron Beppo xiv, Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall know, Like the lost Pleiad, seen no more below. 1842Tennyson Locksley Hall 9 Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. 1868Lockyer Astron. §71 The Pleiades..The six or seven stars visible to the naked eye become 60 or 70 when viewed in the telescope.
b. fig. (sing.) A brilliant cluster or group of persons or things, especially of seven, as the group of poets of the French Renaissance, called in French La Pléiade, and including Ronsard and Du Bellay.
1822–56De Quincey Confess. (1862) 54 Donne, Chillingworth, Sir T. Browne, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, South, Barrow, form a pleiad, a constellation of seven stars, such as no literature can match. 1838–9Hallam Hist. Lit. II. ii. i. §5. 5 Dorat..was also one of the celebrated pleiad of French poets. 1882Illustr. Lond. News 7 Oct. 371 Noriac was one of the brilliant pleiad of writers who formed the staff of the original weekly Figaro. |