Part 641

5. Circuit or range of action, knowledge, or influence; compass; province; employment; place of existence.

To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in 't.

Shak.

Taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.

Hawthorne.

Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe Our hermit spirits dwell.

Keble.

6. Rank; order of society; social positions.

7. An orbit, as of a star; a socket. [R.] Shak.

Armillary sphere, Crystalline sphere, Oblique sphere,. See under Armillary, Crystalline,. -- Doctrine of the sphere, applications of the principles of spherical trigonometry to the properties and relations of the circles of the sphere, and the problems connected with them, in astronomy and geography, as to the latitudes and longitudes, distance and bearing, of places on the earth, and the right ascension and declination, altitude and azimuth, rising and setting, etc., of the heavenly bodies; spherical geometry. -- Music of the spheres. See under Music.

Syn. -- Globe; orb; circle. See Globe.

Sphere (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sphered (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Sphering.] 1. To place in a sphere, or among the spheres; to insphere.

The glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other.

Shak.

2. To form into roundness; to make spherical, or spheral; to perfect. Tennyson.

{ Spher"ic*al (?), Spher"ic (?), } a. [L. sphaericus, Gr. &?;&?;&?;: cf. F. sphérique.] 1. Having the form of a sphere; like a sphere; globular; orbicular; as, a spherical body.

2. Of or pertaining to a sphere.

3. Of or pertaining to the heavenly orbs, or to the sphere or spheres in which, according to ancient astronomy and astrology, they were set.

Knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance.

Shak.

Though the stars were suns, and overburned Their spheric limitations.

Mrs. Browning.

Spherical angle, Spherical coördinate, Spherical excess, etc. See under Angle, Coordinate, etc. -- Spherical geometry, that branch of geometry which treats of spherical magnitudes; the doctrine of the sphere, especially of the circles described on its surface. -- Spherical harmonic analysis. See under Harmonic, a. -- Spherical lune,portion of the surface of a sphere included between two great semicircles having a common diameter. -- Spherical opening, the magnitude of a solid angle. It is measured by the portion within the solid angle of the surface of any sphere whose center is the angular point. -- Spherical polygon,portion of the surface of a sphere bounded by the arcs of three or more great circles. -- Spherical projection, the projection of the circles of the sphere upon a plane. See Projection. -- Spherical sector. See under Sector. -- Spherical segment, the segment of a sphere. See under Segment. -- Spherical triangle,re on the surface of a sphere, bounded by the arcs of three great circles which intersect each other. -- Spherical trigonometry. See Trigonometry.

-- Spher"ic*al*ly, adv. -- Spher"ic*al*ness, n.

Sphe*ric"i*ty (?), n. [Cf. F. sphéricité.] The quality or state of being spherial; roundness; as, the sphericity of the planets, or of a drop of water.

Spher"i*cle (?), n. A small sphere.

Spher"ics (?), n. (Math.) The doctrine of the sphere; the science of the properties and relations of the circles, figures, and other magnitudes of a sphere, produced by planes intersecting it; spherical geometry and trigonometry.

||Sphe`ro*bac*te"ri*a (?), n. pl.; sing. Spherobacterium (&?;). [NL. ||See Sphere, and Bacterium.] (Biol.) See the Note under Microbacteria.