a. and sb. Forms: α. 6 sperycall, 6–7 sphericall, 7– spherical. β. 6–9 sphærical (7 -all). γ. 7 sphearicall. [f. as prec. + -AL.]
A. adj. 1. Having the form of a sphere (or a segment of a sphere); globular.
α. 1523. Skelton, Garl. Laurel, 1514. Then to the heuyn sperycall vpwarde I gasid.
1570. Billingsley, Euclid, XI. def. 12. 316. The Sphericall superficies, which is the limite … of a Sphere.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 508. The Earth being,… at the first forming of it, more perfectly sphericall.
1698. Keill, Exam. Th. Earth (1734), 275. He will not suppose … that the Channel of the Sea is exactly of a Spherical surface.
1753. Hogarth, Anal. Beauty, 8. Connected circular threads, or lines, forming a true spherical shell.
1805–17. R. Jameson, Char. Min. (ed. 3), 168. Supposing the molecules to be spherical.
1851. S. P. Woodward, Mollusca, 38. Completely spherical pearls can only be formed loose in the … soft parts of the animal.
1871. B. Stewart, Heat (ed. 2), § 67. A kind of flask, either cylindrical or spherical.
Comb. 1804. Shaw, Gen. Zool., V. II. 432. Spherical-bodied Diodon, with triangular spines.
β. 1570. Dee, Math. Pref., D j b. Perpendiculars drawen to the Sphæricall Superficies of the earth.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, 483. A center is that point in the midst of a sphæricall body from whence all lines drawn to the circumference are equal.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Gard. Cyrus, iv. 64. Since many … sphæricall seeds arise from angular spindles.
1705[?]. Bp. Berkeley, in Fraser, Life (1871), 483. Segments of sphærical surfaces.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl. s.v. Lycoperdon, The snow white sphærical lycoperdon.
γ. 1613. Blundevil’s Exerc., III. II. vi. (ed. 4), 381. Sith the earth and the water … do make together one whole Sphearicall or round bodie.
b. Of form or figure: Characteristic of a sphere.
1527. R. Thorne, in Hakluyt (1589), 257. To set the forme Sphericall of the world in Plano after yt true rule of Cosmographie.
1553. Eden, Treat. New Ind. (Arb.), 11. Wyth what certayne demonstracions the Astronomers and Geometricians, proue the earth to bee rounde, and the Sphericall or rounde forme to bee mooste perfecte.
1608. Topsell, Serpents, 260. They haue eyther a Sphæricall and heauenly, or at least-wise an Ouall forme.
1698. Keill, Exam. Th. Earth (1734), 137. The Figure of the Earth which the Theorist rightly affirms not to have been exactly Spherical.
1803. Imison, Sci. & Art, I. 237. The machine used on this occasion was formed of silk of a spherical figure.
1868. Lockyer, Guillemin’s Heavens (ed. 3), 96. Its form is not rigorously spherical.
† c. Spherical number, a number whose powers always terminate in the same digit as the number itself. Obs. (Cf. CIRCULAR a. 10.)
The only spherical numbers are 5, 6, and 10.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 219. As Plato first began, and some have endeavoured since by perfect and sphericall numbers. Ibid. (1658), Gard. Cyrus, iii. 53. The number of five is remarkable in every Circle, not only as the first sphærical Number, but the measure of sphærical motion.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Circular Numbers, or Spherical ones, according to some, are such whose Powers terminate in the Roots themselves.
d. Circular. rare–1.
1730. A. Gordon, Maffei’s Amphith., 126. A spherical Building, with Towers at Intervals, as the City Tusculana appears in the Coins of the Sulpician Family.
2. Math. a. Of lines or figures: Drawn in, or on the surface of, a sphere; esp. spherical triangle.
1571. Digges, Pantom., IV. x. Y i b. The axis and sphericall Diameter of thys Dodecaedron.
1585. Blagrave, Math. Iewel (title-p.), The whole Artes of Astronomy,… Dyalling, Sphericall triangles, Setting figures [etc.].
1632. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Eromena, 136. Suchlike were the reasonings of sundry young Princes of divers Countries, who like sphericall lines came to meete all in one and the same center.
1678. Hobbes, Decam., Wks. 1845, VII. 162. The arch of a spherical angle is the side opposite to the angle.
1715. trans. Gregory’s Astron. (1726), I. 476. The spherical Triangle PLT.
1824–5. Encycl. Metrop. (1845), I. 362/1. A spherical polygon is a portion of the surface of a sphere terminated by several arcs of great circles.
1860. Cayley, Math. Papers (1891), IV. 428. The envelope of XY is a spherical conic.
1861. Parker, Introd. Gothic Arch. (ed. 2), Gloss. Ind. 250. Spherical triangle, a triangular opening with curved sides, used in clear-story windows.
1886. B. Brown, Schola to Cathedral, iv. 168. The spherical pendentive, by which dome construction was brought to perfection.
b. Dealing with the properties of the sphere or spherical figures.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Spherical Geometry, the Doctrine of the Sphere. Ibid., Spherical Trigonometry, the Art of resolving Spherical Triangles.
1795. Playfair, Elem. Geom., 279. Elements of Plane and Spherical Trigonometry.
1852. Bristed, Five Yrs. Eng. Univ. (ed. 2), 220. To make sure of the two questions in Spherical Trigonometry, on the first morning’s paper.
c. Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, arising from, the sphere or its properties.
Chiefly in special collocations, as spherical aberration, excess, harmonic, inversion, projection, etc.: see the sbs.
3. Of or pertaining to the celestial spheres.
1605. Shaks., Lear, I. ii. 134. As if we were … Knaues, Theeues, and Treachers by Sphericall predominance.
a. 1619. Fotherby, Atheom., II. xi. § 1 (1622), 310. This sphericall motion of the heauens.
1838. Mrs. Browning, Isobel’s Child, xxxi. A harp whose strings are … tuned to music spherical.
4. Spherical compasses, lathe: (see quots.).
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2264/2. Spherical Lathe, a lathe for turning spheres.
1891. Cent. Dict., Spherical compasses, a kind of calipers for measuring globular bodies.
B. sb. A spherical body. rare.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., xxvi. I ij. All these Arts are chiefly conversant about the spherical, or round, whether figure, or number, or motion; they are forced … to confesse, that a perfect round, or spherical, is no where to be found.
