Venus

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Roman Mythology The goddess of love and beauty.
2. n. The second planet from the sun, having an average radius of 6,052 kilometers (3,761 miles), a mass 0.815 times that of Earth, and a sidereal period of revolution about the sun of 224.7 days at a mean distance of approximately 108.2 million kilometers (67.2 million miles).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In Roman mythology, the goddess of beauty and love, more especially sensual love. Venus was of little importance as a Roman goddess until, at a comparatively late period, she was identified with the Greek Aphrodite. She is represented as the highest ideal of female beauty, and was naturally a favorite subject with poets and artists, some of her statues being among the noblest remains of classical sculpture. The following are some of the more important of the innumerable surviving antique statues of this goddess. The Venus of Arles, a fine Greek statue found in 1651 in the ancient theater at Aries, and now in the Louvre Museum. The figure is undraped to below the waist. The hands and forearms are modern restorations. The statue probably-belonged to the Victrix type (for this and other types, see the phrases). The Venus of Capua, a very noteworthy antique in the Museum of Naples, discovered in the amphitheater at Capua. The figure is undraped to the hips, and is of the Victrix type. It bears a strong resemblance to the Venus of Melos, but is distinctly inferior to that masterpiece. The head is encircled by a stephane. The Venus of Medici, one of the best-known works of ancient sculpture, treasured in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. The figure is of Parian marble, wholly undraped, the face turned to one side, one of the arms extended with the hand held before the body, and the other arm bent before the breast. It is shown by the dolphin on the base to belong to the type of the Venus Anadyomene. While the pose is not identical with that of the Venus of Cnidus, it is generally held to be a free rendering of that conception. The figure is somewhat under natural size, being about 4 feet 8 inches in height, but is commonly taken as the exemplar of perfect proportions in a woman. It was found in the Villa of Hadrian, at Tivoli, about 1680. The Venus of Melos (by corruption from the native Greek pronunciation, Venus of Milo), one of the most splendid surviving works of ancient art, discovered by a farmer in the island of Melos in 1820, and now the chief treasure of the Louvre Museum. The statue dates from about the middle of the fourth century b. c. It is undraped to the hips; the arms are broken off; the figure and face are at once graceful and beautiful, and highly imposing. The typeis that of the Victrix. The Venus of the Capitol, in the Capitoline Museum at Rome, undraped, and in attitude and motive very similar to the Venus of Medici, though the Capitoline statue displays a more personal element, and comes closer to the living model. Of the modern statues representing Venus, there may be mentioned the Venus Borghese, a celebrated statue by Canova, in the Villa Borghese at Rome. The statue represents the Princess Paulino (Bonaparte) Borghese in the character of Venus Genetrix. The figure is shown reclining, extending the apple in one hand, the head being a close portrait. See Aphrodite.
2. n. The most brilliant of the planets, being frequently visible to the naked eye by daylight. It is the second from the sun and next within the earth's orbit, performing its sidereal revolution in 224.7008 days; its distance from the sun is 0.723332 that of the earth. The synodical revolution is made in 584 days. Its orbit is the most nearly circular of those of the major planets, the greatest equation of the center being only 47 3″. The inclination of the orbit to the ecliptic is 3 23'.5; and the earth passes through the ascending node on December 7th. The mass of Venus (which is not very closely ascertained) is about that of the sun, or that of the earth. Its diameter is a little smaller than that of our planet, which subtends an angle of 2 x 8″.827 at the sun's center, while Venus at the same distance has a semidiameter of 8″.68 by the mean of the best night measures, or 8″.40 according to the observations at its transit over the snn. Taking the mean of these (which are alf ected in opposite ways by irradiation), or 8″.54, we find the diameter of Venus about that of the earth. Its volume is about , its density about , and gravity at its surface about the same quantities for the earth. It receives 1.9 as much light and heat from the sun as we, and the tidal action of the latter is about 5.3 times as great as upon the earth. The period of rotation of Venus is set down in many books as 23 hours and 50 minutes; but recent observations have led some astronomers to the confident conclusion that the true period falls short but a little of 225 days, so that day and night last for many years. The old figure was deduced chiefly from the observation that a spot appeared nearly in the same place night after night, so that it seemed as if Venus had made one complete revolution; whereas it now appears that there is in one day no sensible motion. The vast tidal action may account for the near approach of the periods of rotation and revolution. Venus has an atmosphere nearly twice as dense as our own, and we may safely infer that all its water is in the form of dry steam; for the dense atmosphere must cause a greater proportion of the heat to be retained. Probably nearly all the carbon is in the form of carbonic anhydrid or carbonates, leaving little or no free oxygen. Geological erosion can hardly be great. The mountains of Venus are shown to be high by the form of the terminator. Still, Venus reflects a great amount of light (its albedo being 0.9 that of Jupiter, which is perhaps selfluminous), and much of this appears to come from general specular reflection, as from polished level surfaces, possibly melted metals. The night side of Venus, which must be intensely cold, shows a faint coppery-red light, which is somewhat fitful in its appearances, and is probably of the nature of an intense aurora. No satellite of Venus has ever been seen. Numerous observations of one were reported in the eighteenth century; but all these have been fairly shown to be fixed stars, except one, which was probably an asteroid. The symbol for Venus is ♀ , supposed to represent the goddess's mirror.
3. n. Sexual intercourse; venery.
4. n. In old chemistry, copper.
5. n. In heraldry, green: the name given to that color when blazoning is done by means of the planets. See blazon, n., 2.
6. n. In conchology: The typical genus of bivalve shells of the family Veneridæ: so called by Linnæus with allusion to the shape of the lunule of the closed valves. See cuts under Veneridæ, quahog, and dimyarian.
7. n. [lowercase] A shell of the genus Venus; any venerid.
8. n. Venus's-comb; a murex.
9. n. Venus's-slipper. A heteropod, the glass-nautilus. See cut under Carinaria. A pteropod of the family Cymbulidæ. See cut under Cymbulum.

Wiktionary

1. n. A taxonomic genus within the family Veneridae — the true venus clams.
2. n. Roman mythology the goddess of love, beauty, and natural productivity
3. n. The second planet in our solar system, named for the goddess; represented in astronomy and astrology by ♀.
4. n. obsolete Sexual activity or intercourse; sex, lust, venery.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Class. Myth.) The goddess of beauty and love, that is, beauty or love deified.
2. n. (Anat.) One of the planets, the second in order from the sun, its orbit lying between that of Mercury and that of the Earth, at a mean distance from the sun of about 67,000,000 miles. Its diameter is 7,700 miles, and its sidereal period 224.7 days. As the morning star, it was called by the ancients Lucifer; as the evening star, Hesperus.
3. n. (Alchem.), Archaic The metal copper; -- probably so designated from the ancient use of the metal in making mirrors, a mirror being still the astronomical symbol of the planet Venus.
4. n. (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of marine bivalve shells of the genus Venus or family Veneridæ. Many of these shells are large, and ornamented with beautiful frills; others are smooth, glossy, and handsomely colored. Some of the larger species, as the round clam, or quahog, are valued for food.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. type genus of the family Veneridae: genus of edible clams with thick oval shells
2. n. goddess of love; counterpart of Greek Aphrodite
3. n. the second nearest planet to the sun; it is peculiar in that its rotation is slow and retrograde (in the opposite sense of the Earth and all other planets except Uranus); it is visible from Earth as an early `morning star' or an `evening star'