Pl. atlases. [a. L. Atlās, -antem, a. Gr. Ἄτλας, αντα; name of one of the older family of gods, who was supposed to hold up the pillars of the universe, and also of the mountain in Libya that was regarded as supporting the heavens. Hence the various fig. uses.]
1. One who supports or sustains a great burden; a chief supporter, a mainstay.
1589. Nashe, in Greene’s Menaph., Ded. (Arb.), 17. I dare commend him to all that know him, as … the Atlas of Poetrie.
1618. Barneveld’s Apol., C iv b. You … make your selfe the Atlas, and sustainer of the whole state of Holland.
1883. M. Howland, in Harper’s Mag., March, 598/1. We brokers are the Atlases that bear the world upon our shoulders.
b. Arch. (See ATLANTES.)
2. Phys. The first or uppermost cervical vertebra, which supports the skull, being articulated above with the occipital bone. (So in Gr.)
1699. Phil. Trans., XXI. 180. The Union by the Atlas, is not so firm and compact as in the other Vertebræ.
1842. E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M., 9. The Atlas is a simple ring of bone, without body, and composed of arches and processes.
3. A collection of maps in a volume. [This use of the word is said to be derived from a representation of Atlas supporting the heavens placed as a frontispiece to early works of this kind, and to have been first used by Mercator in the 16th c.]
1636. (title) Atlas; or a Geographic Description of the World, by Gerard Mercator and John Hondt.
1641. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 28. Visited the famous Hondius and Bleaw’s shop, to buy some maps, atlasses [etc.].
1729. Flamsteed (title), Atlas Cœlestis.
1812. Woodhouse, Astron., ix. 63. Celestial Atlases also, or maps of the Heavens.
4. A similar volume containing illustrative plates, large engravings, etc., or the conspectus of any subject arranged in tabular form; e.g. ‘an atlas of anatomical plates,’ ‘an ethnographical atlas.’
1875. Fortnum, Maiolica, vi. 53. The details of all these methods are illustrated on the 3rd table of his atlas of plates.
5. A large square folio resembling a volume of maps; also called atlas-folio.
6. A large size of drawing-paper.
1712. Act 10 Anne, in Lond. Gaz., No. 5018/3. For all Paper called Atlas fine 16s. per Ream, Atlas ordinary 8s.
1879. Spon, Workshop Rec., 1, Atlas, 33 × 26 inches.
7. Comb. or Attrib., as Atlas beetle, a gigantic olive-green lamellicorn beetle (Chalcosoma Atlas), found in the East; Atlas-like a. (or adv.), like, or after the manner of, Atlas; Atlas moth (Saturnia Atlas), a very large foreign moth.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Wks. (1711), 3/2. That Atlas-like it seem’d the heaven they beared.
1868. Wood, Homes without H., xiv. 280. That magnificent insect the Atlas Moth.
