Milky Way

From Middle English Milky Wey, a calque of Latin Via Lactea (literally “milky road”), a calque of Ancient Greek γαλαξίας (galaxías), referring to its appearance as a pale band of stars across the sky. Compare also Old English Īringes weġ (“Milky Way”), Old Norse Mjólkrhringr (“Milky Way”, literally “milk-ring, milk-circle”). The reference to the galaxy is an extension of the second sense.

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the Milky Way

2. (astronomy) The Milky Way Galaxy, the galaxy in which Earth is located. [from mid 19th c.]^[1]

   Synonyms: Milky Way Galaxy, Galaxy, Local Galaxy

   Meronyms: Galactic Center, Sagittarius A*

   • 1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Solitude”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 144:

     This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?

   • 2021, William Sheehan, Jim Bell, chapter 13, in Discovering Mars, page 294:

     From a cosmic perspective, even our host galaxy, the Milky Way, is not particularly special […]

   • 2024 August 21, Ashley Strickland, “An unusual object is moving so fast it could escape the Milky Way. Scientists aren’t certain what it is”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     By combining the data from multiple telescopes, astronomers determined the star’s position and velocity in space, allowing them to predict that it will exit the Milky Way at some point.

3. (astronomy) A broad band of diffuse white light, visible in the night sky; our view of the dense portions of the Milky Way Galaxy from inside the galaxy. [from late 14th c.]

   Synonyms: Silvery River, Great Sky River

   • 1869, Mark Twain, chapter XXXII, in The Innocents Abroad, page 348:

     […] a random shower of amber lights—a spray of golden sparks that […] glinted softly upon the sea of dark foliage like the pallid stars of the milky-way.

• Milky Way on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “Milky Way”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “Milky Way”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.