Noun

(en noun)

(mathematics) A regular three-dimensional object in which every cross-section is a circle; the figure described by the revolution of a circle about its diameter .

A spherical physical object; a globe or ball.

* Milton

Of celestial bodies, first the sun, / A mighty sphere , he framed.

* 2011 , Piers Sellers, The Guardian , 6 July:

So your orientation changes a little bit but it sinks in that the world is a sphere , and you're going around it, sometimes under it, sideways, or over it.

* 1635 , John Donne, "His parting form her":

Though cold and darkness longer hang somewhere, / Yet Phoebus equally lights all the Sphere .

(historical, astronomy, mythology) Any of the concentric hollow transparent globes formerly believed to rotate around the Earth, and which carried the heavenly bodies; there were originally believed to be eight, and later nine and ten; friction between them was thought to cause a harmonious sound (the music of the spheres ).

*, vol.1, p.153:

It is more simplicitie to teach our children[t]he knowledge of the starres, and the motion of the eighth spheare , before their owne.

* 1646 , (Thomas Browne), Pseudodoxia Epidemica , I.6:

They understood not the motion of the eighth sphear from West to East, and so conceived the longitude of the Stars invariable.

(mythology) An area of activity for a planet; or by extension, an area of influence for a god, hero etc.

(figuratively) The region in which something or someone is active; one's province, domain.

* 1946 , (Bertrand Russell), History of Western Philosophy , I.20:

They thought – originally on grounds derived from religion – that each thing or person had its or his proper sphere , to overstep which is ‘unjust’.

(geometry) The set of all points in three-dimensional Euclidean space (or n -dimensional space, in topology) that are a fixed distance from a fixed point .

(logic) The extension of a general conception, or the totality of the individuals or species to which it may be applied.

Noun

(s)

(computing) The sphere of digital information.

* {{quote-news, year=2007, date=August 19, author=Guy Trebay, title=These Hills Still Talk to Him, work=New York Times citation

, passage=The sexual frontier that once beckoned to adventurers as unalike as Gianni Versace and Michel Foucault has largely shifted to the cybersphere . }}

* {{quote-news, year=2009, date=February 19, author=Guy Trebay, title=Troubling Signs Around the Shows, work=New York Times citation

, passage=Who would be first to record the very latest and most supercrucial bit of subtrivia to transmit to “friends” in the cybersphere ? }}