Atlas

How to spell atlas

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce atlas

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does atlas mean?

1. nounA bound collection of maps, charts, or geographical tables.

Atlas in a sentence

• She pulled a road atlas from the glovebox to plan the detour.

• The library keeps a heavy world atlas on a stand near the reference desk, updated every few years.

Where does atlas come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from Atlas, the Titan of Greek mythology who was condemned to hold up the sky on his shoulders. His name probably derives from the Greek root tlenai, meaning 'to bear' or 'to endure', so Atlas was literally 'the one who carries'. The leap from a mythological strongman to a book of maps happened in the sixteenth century: the geographer Gerardus Mercator put a picture of Atlas holding the globe on the title page of his great collection of maps published in 1595, and readers soon began calling any such bound set of maps an 'atlas'. From there the meaning broadened to cover any systematic collection of charts, tables, or illustrations. The same root also gave us the Atlantic Ocean, the 'sea of Atlas', and in anatomy the topmost neck vertebra was named the atlas because it supports the weight of the head, much as the Titan supported the sky.

How the word is built

• atlas (from the Greek Titan Atlas, who bore the heavens on his shoulders; no separable prefix or suffix)