Meaning

(countable) The universe regarded as a system with harmony and order..

Definitions by Sense

1. (countable) The universe regarded as a system with harmony and order.
2. (uncountable) Harmony, order.
3. Any of various mostly Mexican herbs of the genus Cosmos having radiate heads of variously coloured flowers and pinnate leaves.
4. plural of cosmo

Example Sentences

This doctrine [the nebular hypothesis] supposes all the material universe to have been once in a fluid or nebular condition, and that, by the operation of universal gravitation and the thousand other laws of nature, the nebular matter has been mainly aggregated into masses, and the existing cosmoi been developed.

It [the earth] was in the centre of the Kosmos; it remained stationary because of its equal distance from all parts of the outer revolving spheres; there was no cause determining it to move upward rather than downward or sideways, therefore it remained still. Its exhalations nourished the fire in the peripheral regions of the Kosmos.

Can you conceive a process by which you, an organic being, are in the same way dissolved into the cosmos, and then by a subtle reversal of the conditions reassembled once more?"

The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

Along with this question of order was the question of whether there was one cosmos or many ‘cosmoi’. Plato and Aristotle firmly believed that there was one unique cosmos that was in some way structured for the best. The atomists, on the other hand, believed that there were many cosmoi, separate from one another, in which everything happened by chance.

In seeking a satisfactory formulation of materialism, it helps to employ the notion of a possible world. Possible worlds are plausibly construed not literally as universes other than the single real universe (i.e., not as cosmoi), but rather as total ways the cosmos might be—i.e., maximal properties instantiable by the single real world (the single cosmos). On this usage, the item designated as the actual world—considered as one among the various possible worlds—is not itself the cosmos either, but rather is the total cosmos-instantiable property that is actually instantiated by the cosmos. But it will be convenient in practice to speak as though the actual world is the cosmos and as though other possible worlds are other such cosmoi — a harmless enough manner of speaking, as long as one bears in mind that it is not intended literally.

In Dr [Christof] Wetterich's picture of the cosmos the redshift others attribute to expansion is, rather, the result of the universe putting on weight. If atoms weighed less in the past, he reasons, the light they emitted then would, in keeping with the laws of quantum mechanics, have been less energetic than the light they emit now.

He [Frederick I of Prussia] founded Universities, this poor King; University of Halle; Royal Academy of Berlin, [Gottfried Wilhelm] Leibniz presiding: he fought for Protestantism;—did what he could for the cause of Cosmos versus Chaos, after his fashion.

Word Forms

• cosmoses
• cosmoi
• kosmos
• cosmos

Synonyms for cosmos

Antonyms for cosmos

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When Should You Use Cosmos?

Use cosmos when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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