Plē'ia-dēz, n. pl.
(plē'ya-dēz), n. pl. [Lat. Pleiades, Gr. Πλειάδες, from πλεῖν, to sail, as the rising of the seven stars indicated the time of safe navigation.]
Sense 1. (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) The seven daughters of Atlas and the nymph Pleione, fabled to have been made, by Jupiter a constellation in the sky.
Sense 2. (Astron.) A group of seven small stars situated in the neck of the constellation Taurus, regarded by Mädler as the central group of the system of the Milky Way.
☞ Only six of these stars are visible to the naked eye; and the ancients supposed that the seventh concealed herself, out of shame for having bestowed her love upon a mere mortal, Sisyphus, while her sisters were the favorites of divine personages.—Alcyone, the brightest of the Pleiades, a star of the third magnitude, is considered to occupy the apparent position of the central point round which our universe of fixed stars is revolving.