▪ I. ‖ cosmos1
(ˈkɒzmɒs)
Also 7 cosmus, 9 kosmos.
[a. Gr. κόσµος order, ornament, world or universe (so called by Pythagoras or his disciples ‘from its perfect order and arrangement’).]
1. The world or universe as an ordered and harmonious system.
| 1650 Bulwer Anthropomet. xv. 149 As the greater World is called Cosmus from the beauty thereof. 1848 tr. Humboldt's Cosmos (Bohn) I. 53 In this work I use the word Cosmos..[as] the assemblage of all things in heaven and earth, the universality of created things, constituting the perceptible world. 1865 Grote Plato I. i. 12 The Pythagoreans conceived the Kosmos, or the universe, as one single system, generated out of numbers. 1869 Phillips Vesuv. xii. 324 A complete history of volcanos should.. be in harmony with the general history of the cosmos. 1874 Blackie Self Cult. 11 Were it not for the indwelling reason the world would be a chaos and not a cosmos. |
b. transf. An ordered and harmonious system (of ideas, existences, etc.), e.g. that which constitutes the sum-total of ‘experience’.
| 1882 T. H. Green Proleg. Ethics §145 Sensations which do not amount to perceptions, make no lodgment in the cosmos of our experience, add nothing to our knowledge. 1885 Clodd Myths & Dr. ii. iii. 155 The confusion which reigns in his [man's] cosmos extends to his notion of what is in the mind and what is out of it. |
2. Order, harmony: the opposite of chaos.
| 1858 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. ii. i, Hail, brave Henry..still visible as a valiant Son of Cosmos and Son of Heaven. 1872 W. Minto Eng. Prose Lit. i. iii. 187 Work, the panacea which alone brings order out of confusion, cosmos out of chaos. |
▪ II. † cosmos2 Obs.
Also 7 cossmos, cosmus.
Early form of koumiss.
[App. due to some error of transcription.]
| 1598 Hakluyt Voy. I. 97 Their drinke called Cosmos, which is mares milke. 1601 R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. (1603) 167 As the Arabians, so they [Tartars], delight in sower milke, or cosmus. 1630 Capt. Smith Trav. 27 In Summer they drinke most Cossmos. |
▪ III. cosmos3
(ˈkɒzmɒs)
[mod.L. (A. J. Cavanilles Icones et Descriptiones Plantarum (1791) I. 9), ad. Gr. κόσµος ornament; so named from its elegant foliage.]
A plant of the genus of Compositæ so named, native to tropical America, species of which, bearing rose, scarlet, and purple single dahlia-like blossoms, are cultivated as hardy annuals and perennials.
| 1813 [see cosmea]. 1911 C. Harris Eve's Second Husband xiv. 278 You have that muslin with the purple cosmos flowers in it. 1920 United Free Ch. Miss. Rec. Dec. 226/2 Patches of white and magenta flowers called Cosmos. 1922 Glasgow Herald 25 Jan. 8 The pale delicacy of great beds of cosmos. 1929 Encycl. Brit. VI. 493/1 The common cosmos..has a smoothish stem bearing much-cut, narrowly-lobed leaves and flower-heads with a yellow centre. 1956 Dict. Gardening (R. Hort. Soc.) Suppl. 19/1 Most of the garden varieties of Cosmos are derived from Cosmos bipinnatus. |