firmament

• It gave the appearance of a grating in the firmament, a small dungeon grating. —  The Long Roll
• I looked up and saw that the firmament was obscured by heavy masses of cloud, which held out the promise of a speedy fall of thrice-blessed rain. —  Under the Meteor Flag Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War
• Gradually, in the progress of philosophy, animal gods are dethroned and become inferior gods or are forgotten; and gradually the gods of the firmament--the sun, the moon, the stars--are advanced to supremacy; the clouds, the storms, the winds, day and night, dawn and gloaming, the sky, the earth, the sea, and all the various phases of nature perceived by the barbaric mind, are personified and deified and exalted to a supremacy coordinate with the firmament gods; and all the gods of the lower stage that remain--animals, demons, and all men--belong to inferior tribes. —  Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56
• And I found that the forces of the firmament were molding my orbit also. —  Wandl the Invader
• If the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet when the storm passed how pure was the climate that it cleared; how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if nature were endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. —  Standard Selections A Collection and Adaptation of Superior Productions From Best Authors For Use in Class Room and on the Platform

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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