Also 4 almagesti, almageste. [a. OFr. almageste, ad. (ult.) Arab. al-majistī, ad. (with article al the) Gr. μεγίστη greatest (sc. σύνταξις composition); applied by the Arabs (and previously, it is inferred, in the Greek schools of Alexandria) to the great treatise of Ptolemy, Μαθηματική σύνταξις, in contradistinction to the elementary works studied before it.] The great astronomical treatise of Ptolemy; extended in middle ages to other great text-books of astrology and alchemy.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Miller’s T., 22. His almageste and bokes gret and smale, His astrelabre longing for his art.
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 134. Danz Tholome is nought the lest Which maketh the boke of almagest.
1614. Selden, Titles of Hon., 74. The starres placed in his almagest are of that time.
c. 1680. Sir T. Browne, Tracts, 179. Welcome might be a true Almagest.
1714. Derham, Astro-th. (1715), Pref. p. xiii. (Jon.). The particulars of which, if the Reader hath a mind to see, he may find them in Riccioli’s Almagest.
1805. Scott, Last Minstrel, VI. xvii. On cross, and character, and talisman, And almagest, and altar, nothing bright.
1878. Newcomb, Pop. Astron., I. i. 32. The ‘Almagest’ of Ptolemy, composed about the middle of the second century of our era.
