The Collaborative International Dictionary
Crystalline \Crys"tal*line\ (kr?s"tal-l?n or -l?n; 277), a. [L. crystallinus, from Gr. ????: cf. F. cristallin. See Crystal.]
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Consisting, or made, of crystal.
Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.
--Shak. -
Formed by crystallization; like crystal in texture.
Their crystalline structure.
--Whewell. Imperfectly crystallized; as, granite is only crystalline, while quartz crystal is perfectly crystallized.
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Fig.: Resembling crystal; pure; transparent; pellucid. ``The crystalline sky.''
--Milton.Crystalline heavens, or Crystalline spheres, in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, two transparent spheres imagined to exist between the region of the fixed stars and the primum mobile (or outer circle of the heavens, which by its motion was supposed to carry round all those within it), in order to explain certain movements of the heavenly bodies.
Crystalline lens (Anat.), the capsular lenslike body in the eye, serving to focus the rays of light. It consists of rodlike cells derived from the external embryonic epithelium.
Usage examples of "crystalline spheres".
Afterward I found that his voice was music-the music of deep viols and of crystalline spheres.
Hiro and Da5id and the rest of them began to switch away from the enormous, bizarre vehicles they had favored at first -- Victorian houses on tank treads, rolling ocean liners, mile-wide crystalline spheres, flaming chariots drawn by dragons -- in favor of small maneuverable vehicles.
The builders, whoever they were, had studded the surfaceapparently at randomwith enormous, jet black metallic structures, most of them circumscribed by high, circular walls and ringed with what certainly looked like colossal disrupter cannon emplacementsgreat crystalline spheres plated over for nearly a hemisphere where they were pierced by two slender, finned rods that must have reached two hundred irals in length.
The tears began again, bright crystalline spheres tracking down her cheeks.
Some busied themselves figuring out how the Sun, the Moon, the stars, and the planets could be cunningly attached to perfectly transparent, crystalline spheres—.
Some busied themselves figuring out how the Sun, the Moon, the stars, and the planets could be cunningly attached to perfectly transparent, crystalline spheres-the big spheres, of course, centered on the Earth-that would explain the complex motions of the celestial bodies so meticulously chronicled by generations of astronomers.
Afterward I found that his voice was music - the music of deep viols and of crystalline spheres.
The music made him think of spaces without limits, of huge crystalline spheres which revolved with unutterable slowness through the vasty halls of the air.