ATLAS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Atlas mean? 

• ATLAS (noun)
  The noun ATLAS has 4 senses:

1. (Greek mythology) a Titan who was forced by Zeus to bear the sky on his shoulders

2. a collection of maps in book form

3. the 1st cervical vertebra

4. a figure of a man used as a supporting column

  Familiarity information: ATLAS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ATLAS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(Greek mythology) a Titan who was forced by Zeus to bear the sky on his shoulders

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Instance hypernyms:

Titan ((Greek mythology) any of the primordial giant gods who ruled the Earth until overthrown by Zeus; the Titans were offspring of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth))

Domain category:

Greek mythology (the mythology of the ancient Greeks)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A collection of maps in book form

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

atlas; book of maps; map collection

Hypernyms ("atlas" is a kind of...):

book of facts; reference; reference book; reference work (a book to which you can refer for authoritative facts)

Meronyms (parts of "atlas"):

gazetteer (a geographical dictionary (as at the back of an atlas))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "atlas"):

dialect atlas; linguistic atlas (an atlas showing the distribution of distinctive linguistic features)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The 1st cervical vertebra

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Synonyms:

atlas; atlas vertebra

Hypernyms ("atlas" is a kind of...):

cervical vertebra; neck bone (one of 7 vertebrae in the human spine located in the neck region)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A figure of a man used as a supporting column

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

atlas; telamon

Hypernyms ("atlas" is a kind of...):

column; pillar ((architecture) a tall vertical cylindrical structure standing upright and used to support a structure)

 Context examples 

To this end, they examined data on “cytolytic activity,” or a genetic profile that shows cancer cells are responding to T cells, in more than 11,000 patient tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas.

(A new study identifies essential genes for cancer immunotherapy, National Institutes of Health)

The atlas takes advantage of low-light imaging now available from the NOAA/NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite, calibrated by thousands of ground observations.

(Milky Way now hidden from a third of humanity, NOAA)

The Atlas of the Caatingas brings recommendations for the effective protection of the areas surveyed.

(Brazilian savanna unprotected, study finds, Agência Brasil)

So it will, I trust, appear in the atlas of the future.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The joint located between the atlas and axis vertebrae.

(Atlanto-Axial Joint, NCI Thesaurus)

The joint located between the atlas and occipital vertebrae.

(Atlanto-Occipital Joint, NCI Thesaurus)

A muscle extending along the anterior spine between the atlas and the third thoracic vertebrae with three portions; superior oblique, vertical oblique and inferior oblique.

(Longus Colli, NCI Thesaurus)

The atlas contains a guide to standardized mammographic reporting, including a breast-imaging lexicon of terminology, a report organization and assessment structure and coding system.

(Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System, NCI Thesaurus)

A central facility to qualify, quality assure, and distribute human biomolecules in support of the development of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA).

(Biospecimen Core Resource, NCI Thesaurus)

The atlas is the culmination of work from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Consortium, established to catalog how genomic variation influences how genes are turned off and on.

(NIH completes atlas of human DNA differences that influence gene expression, National Institutes of Health)