Galileo

[ gal-uh-ley-oh, -lee-oh; for 1 also Italian gah-lee-le-aw ]

/ ˌgæl əˈleɪ oʊ, -ˈli oʊ; for 1 also Italian ˌgɑ liˈlɛ ɔ /

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noun

Galileo Galilei, 1564–1642, Italian physicist and astronomer.

Aerospace. a U.S. space probe designed to take photographs and obtain other scientific information while orbiting the planet Jupiter.

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His boss, whom he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

His boss, who he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

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Words nearby Galileo

Galilean satellite, Galilean satellites, Galilean telescope, Galilean transformation, galilee, Galileo, Galileo Galilei, galimatias, galingale, galinsoga, Galion

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use Galileo in a sentence

Mario Livio is an astrophysicist and author of Galileo and the Science Deniers.
If Aliens Exist, Here’s How We’ll Find Them - Issue 97: Wonder|Martin Rees & Mario Livio|February 24, 2021|Nautilus
It made a move into the B2B realm with its acquisition last April of Galileo.
SoFi to go public in merger with Chamath Palihapitiya’s newest SPAC|Kirsten Korosec|January 7, 2021|TechCrunch
The best views of the moon’s landscape are from the Galileo orbiter in the 1990s, and the smallest features it could see were half a kilometer across.
How future spacecraft might handle tricky landings on Venus or Europa|Lisa Grossman|December 23, 2020|Science News
As an astronomer, he observed features on the moon and spotted the moons of Jupiter, possibly even before Galileo.
Do You Know These Scientific Pioneers? - Issue 93: Forerunners|Tom Siegfried|November 25, 2020|Nautilus

According to legend, Galileo dropped weights off of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, showing that gravity causes objects of different masses to fall with the same acceleration.
Galileo’s famous gravity experiment holds up, even with individual atoms|Emily Conover|October 28, 2020|Science News
Along with Galileo, it represents Brecht at his epic apogee.
Brecht's Mercenary Mother Courage Turns 75|Katie Baker|September 10, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Aristotle and Galileo looked up at the same lights in the night sky.
How Liberty University Creates Creationists|Karl W. Giberson|March 2, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Aristotle saw a universe with a stationary earth at the center and Galileo saw a universe with the earth in motion about the sun.
How Liberty University Creates Creationists|Karl W. Giberson|March 2, 2014|DAILY BEAST
His birth might also be remembered as occurring in the same year as that of the great astronomer Galileo.
Assimilative Memory|Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
Already Galileo began to encounter vulgar indignation which accused him of impiety.
Gospel Philosophy|J. H. Ward
Against Galileo, the war against the Copernican theory was concentrated.
The Necessity of Atheism|Dr. D.M. Brooks
Their wisdom in this will be best appreciated from the fact that none of Galileo's reasons maintained themselves.
Education: How Old The New|James J. Walsh
Thus Galileo came very near to inventing both the thermometer and the barometer, but yet invented neither!
Invention|Bradley A. Fiske

British Dictionary definitions for Galileo (1 of 2)

Galileo¹

/ (ˌɡælɪˈleɪəʊ) /

noun

full name Galileo Galilei. 1564–1642, Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He discovered the isochronism of the pendulum and demonstrated that falling bodies of different weights descend at the same rate. He perfected the refracting telescope, which led to his discovery of Jupiter's satellites, sunspots, and craters on the Earth's moon. He was forced by the Inquisition to recant his support of the Copernican system

British Dictionary definitions for Galileo (2 of 2)

Galileo²

/ (ˌɡælɪˈleɪəʊ) /

noun

a US spacecraft, launched 1989, that entered orbit around Jupiter in late 1995 to study the planet and its major satellites; burned up in the planet's atmosphere in 2003

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for Galileo

Galileo

[ (gal-uh-lee-oh, gal-uh-lay-oh) ]

An Italian scientist of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; his full name was Galileo Galilei. Galileo proved that objects with different masses fall at the same velocity. One of the first persons to use a telescope to examine objects in the sky, he saw the moons of Jupiter, the mountains on the moon, and sunspots.

notes for Galileo

Authorities of the Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo to renounce his belief in the model of the solar system proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus. Galileo had to assert that the Earth stands still, and the sun revolves around it. A famous legend holds that Galileo, after making this public declaration about a motionless Earth, muttered, “Nevertheless, it does move.”