Brewer's: Crystalline

(3 syl.). The Crystalline sphere. According to Ptolemy, between the “primum mobile” and the firmament or sphere of the fixed stars comes the crystalline sphere, which oscillates or has a shimmering motion that interferes with the regular motion of the stars.

They pass the planets seven, and pass the `fixed' And that crystalline sphere, whose balance weighs  The trepidation talked (of).

Milton: Paradise Lost, iii.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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