atlas

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A book or bound collection of maps, sometimes with supplementary illustrations and graphic analyses.
2. n. A volume of tables, charts, or plates that systematically illustrates a particular subject: an anatomical atlas.
3. n. A large size of drawing paper, measuring 26 × 33 or 26 × 34 inches.
4. n. Architecture A standing or kneeling figure of a man used as a supporting column, as for an entablature or balcony.
5. n. Anatomy The top or first cervical vertebra of the neck, which supports the skull.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. [capitalized] One who supports a heavy burden; a mainstay; a ‘pillar.’
2. n. [Pl. atlantes (at-lan′ -tēz).] A male human figure serving as a column or pilaster. See atlantes.
3. n. [NL.] In anatomy, the first cervical vertebra, by which the skull articulates with the spinal column: so called because it supports the head, as Atlas was fabled to uphold the sky. It is one of the most modified and specialized of the vertebræ, often having no centrum, as such, but a hypapophysis instead, large transverse processes or lateral masses, and the other processes small or wanting. The general form of the bone is annular; it revolves about a pivot furnished by the odontoid process of the axis, and follows the rotatory movements of the head upon the neck. It is commonly ankylosed with the axis in Cetacea. See ankylosis.
4. n. A bound collection of maps. The word was first used in this sense by Mercator in the sixteenth century, in allusion to the Atlas of mythology, whose figure, represented as bearing a globe on his shoulders, was given on the title-page of such works.
5. n. Hence A volume of plates or tables illustrative or explanatory of some subject.
6. n. A size of writing- or drawing-paper, 26 by 33 or 34 inches.
7. n. [NL.] In entomology, a large lamellicorn beetle of the family Scarabæidæ; the atlas beetle, Chalcosoma atlas, about 3 inches long, and of a brilliant metallic-green color.
8. n. A kind of satin: a word formerly used in the Levant and in India.

Wiktionary

1. n. A bound collection of maps often including tables, illustrations or other text.
2. n. A bound collection of tables, illustrations etc. on any given subject.
3. n. especially of the human body A detailed visual conspectus of something of great and multi-faceted complexity, with its elements splayed so as to be presented in as discrete a manner as possible whilst retaining a realistic view of the whole.
4. n. topology A collection of top-dimensional subspaces, called charts, each homeomorphic to Euclidean space, which comprise the entirety of a manifold, such that intersecting charts' respective homeomorphisms are compatible in a certain way.
5. n. anatomy The uppermost vertebra of the neck.
6. n. One who supports a heavy burden; mainstay.
7. n. architecture A figure of a man used as a column; telamon.
8. n. paper A sheet of paper measuring 26 inches by 34 inches.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who sustains a great burden.
2. n. (Anat.) The first vertebra of the neck, articulating immediately with the skull, thus sustaining the globe of the head, whence the name.
3. n. A collection of maps in a volume.
4. n. A volume of plates illustrating any subject.
5. n. A work in which subjects are exhibited in a tabular from or arrangement.
6. n. A large, square folio, resembling a volume of maps; -- called also atlas folio.
7. n. A drawing paper of large size. See under Paper, n.
8. n. A rich kind of satin manufactured in India.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the 1st cervical vertebra
2. n. a figure of a man used as a supporting column
3. n. (Greek mythology) a Titan who was forced by Zeus to bear the sky on his shoulders
4. n. a collection of maps in book form