a Boeotian giant famed as a great hunter, who figures in several tales
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026
O•ri•on
(ə rī′ən),USA pronunciation n., [gen.] Or•i•o•nis (ôr′ē ō′nis, or′-, ə rī′ə nis)USA pronunciation for 2.
- Mythology[Class. Myth.]a giant hunter who pursued the Pleiades, was eventually slain by Artemis, and was then placed in the sky as a constellation.
- Astronomythe Hunter, a constellation lying on the celestial equator between Canis Major and Taurus, containing the bright stars Betelgeuse and Rigel.
- Militarya land-based U.S. Navy patrol plane with four turboprop engines, used to detect, track, and destroy enemy submarines and armed with missiles, torpedoes, mines, and depth bombs.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
a conspicuous constellation near Canis Major containing two first magnitude stars (Betelgeuse and Rigel) and a distant bright emission nebula (the Orion Nebula) associated with a system of giant molecular clouds and star formation
'Orion' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
Bellatrix
- Betelgeuse
- Canis Major
- Canis Minor
- Eridanus
- Great Nebula of Orion
- Horsehead Nebula
- Lepus
- Menippe
- Monoceros
- Orion Nebula
- Orionids
- Pleiades
- Rigel
- Sirius
- Taurus
- constellation
- emission nebula
- hunter
- star stream