orbital
orbital Lexical Profile
orbital Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Relating to the curved path of a celestial object or spacecraft around a star, planet, or moon.
"Engineers carefully calculated the satellite's orbital velocity to ensure it remained in position above the equator."
Relating to the bony socket of the eye.
"The patient underwent a CT scan to check for an orbital fracture after being struck in the face by a baseball."
British Designating a major road or motorway that encircles a city or metropolitan area.
"Heavy morning traffic on the London orbital motorway delayed commuters for over an hour."
• noun
A mathematical wave function or three-dimensional region of space around an atomic nucleus or within a molecule in which an electron is most likely to be found.
"In chemistry class, we learned how electrons fill the lowest available energy orbitals first."
British A highway or ring road that encircles a town or city to allow traffic to bypass the center.
"Taking the outer orbital is usually much faster than driving straight through the congested city center."
• Rhymes for orbital
Word Origin & Etymology
First recorded in the mid-16th century as an anatomical term from Medieval Latin orbitalis, derived from Latin orbita ('wheel track' or 'circuit'), from orbis ('ring' or 'circle'). The quantum physics noun sense was coined in 1932 by American chemist Robert S. Mulliken.