atlas

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a bound collection of maps

   He traced the river's course across two pages of the worn atlas.

From the Titan Atlas of Greek mythology, who held up the heavens; the cartographic sense arises because 16th-century map collections (notably Mercator's) bore a depiction of Atlas bearing the globe. Greek Átlās is traditionally derived from a- (intensive) + tláō ('to bear, endure').

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