atlas

Meanings

1. A bound collection of maps often including tables, illustrations or other text.
2. A bound collection of tables, illustrations, etc. on any given subject.
3. A detailed visual conspectus of something of great and multi-faceted complexity, with its elements splayed so as to be presented in as discrete a manner as possible whilst retaining a realistic view of the whole.
4. A family of coordinate charts that cover a manifold.
5. The uppermost vertebra of the cervical spine in the neck in humans and some other animals.
6. One who supports a heavy burden; mainstay.
7. A figure of a man used as a column.
8. A sheet of paper measuring 26 inches by 34 inches.
9. An image or texture containing a number of other images or textures, so as to reduce the cost of loading them separately.

1. A rich satin fabric.

1. The son of Iapetus and Clymene, war leader of the Titans ordered by the god Zeus to support the sky on his shoulders; father to the Hesperides, the Hyades, and the Pleiades; king of the legendary Atlantis.
2. A placename:
3. A place in the United States:
4. An unincorporated community in Pike County, Illinois.
5. A township in Genesee County, Michigan.
6. An unincorporated community in Lamar County, Texas.
7. An unincorporated community in Upshur County, West Virginia.
8. An unincorporated community in Laketown, Polk County, Wisconsin.
9. A moon of Saturn.
10. A crater in the last quadrant of the moon.
11. A triple star system in the Pleiades open cluster (M45) also known as 27 Tauri.
12. A surname.

1. A particular model or individual specimen of the Atlas missile and launch vehicle line.

1. A subgroup of the Berber languages.
2. Ellipsis of Atlas Mountains

1. Alternative form of ATLAS

1. Initialism of Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (a robotic astronomical survey and early warning system optimized for detecting smaller near-Earth objects)
2. A comet, an interstellar object visiting the Solar System, on a hyperbolic orbit. Named after the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin Atlas, from the name of the Ancient Greek mythological figure Ἄτλας (Átlas, “Bearer (of the Heavens)”), from τλῆναι (tlênai, “to suffer”, “to endure”, “to bear”). The sense referring to books of maps comes from the Atlas of Mercator, which he named thus in honor of Atlas, who was supposed to be skillful in astronomy and the doctrine of the sphere. The sense referring to the vertebra reflects that the spine carries the globe of the cranium (the neck carries the head).