[f. URANI-A + -AN.]
1. Pertaining to or befitting heaven; celestial, heavenly. (Freq. from c. 1890.)
1600. Tourneur, Transf. Metam., lxxv. He bent his mind to pure Vranian vses.
1619. A. Garden, Bp. Elphinston (Hunt. Cl.), 680. That concord, loue, and peace,… Ar suirlie … Uranian and Diuine.
1818. Shelley, Prose Wks. (1880), III. 21. Surrounded by sculptures of divine workmanship, he sees the earthly image of Uranian Love.
1854. Syd. Dobell, Balder, xxiii. 90. That old Italian whose Uranian pride, When his great prince had forfeited the skies, Built him another heaven.
1893. F. Thompson, Poems, 21. And parting from her, in me linger on Vague snatches of Uranian antiphon.
b. As a distinctive epithet of Venus (or Aphrodite): Heavenly, spiritual. (Cf. the etym. note to PANDEMIC.)
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat., III. 301. Genuine Liberty, offspring of all-protecting Jove, and sister of Uranian Venus.
1847. Tennyson, Princ., I. 239. O’er his [sc. Cupid’s] head Uranian Venus hung.
1904. L. Tracy, Rainbow Island, viii. One might almost fancy her ladyship the Moon appearing on the scene as a Uranian Venus.
2. Pertaining, belonging, or dedicated to Urania.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., II. iii. (1674), 136. Euclide … was set upon by some under the Uranian Porch.
1820. Shelley, Milton’s Spirit, 2. I dreamed that Milton’s spirit rose, and took From life’s green tree his Uranian lute.
1889. Blackie, Lett. to Wife (1909), 333. I paid worship to the Uranian muse.
3. Of or pertaining to astronomy; astronomical.
1761. Ann. Reg., Chron., 194/2. Crabtree, whom Horrox had, by letter, invited to this Uranian banquet [= observing the transit of Venus, 1639].
1832. Frost (title), Uranian Guide; or, Outline Celestial Atlas.
1839. (Broadside title-p.), Uranian Society is established for the advancement of Astronomical Science.
