Ptolemaic system

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

Ptol′ema′ic sys′tem, [Astron.]

1. Astronomy a system elaborated by Ptolemy and subsequently modified by others, according to which the earth was the fixed center of the universe, with the heavenly bodies moving about it.

• 1765–75

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

Ptolemaic system noun

1. the theory of planetary motion developed by Ptolemy from the hypotheses of earlier philosophers, stating that the earth lay at the centre of the universe with the sun, the moon, and the known planets revolving around it in complicated orbits. Beyond the largest of these orbits lay a sphere of fixed stars
   Compare Copernican system