Ple"ia*des (?; 277), n. pl. [L., fr. Gr. (&?;)] 1. (Myth.) The seven daughters of Atlas and the nymph Pleione, fabled to have been made by Jupiter a constellation in the sky.

2. (Astron.) A group of small stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus. Job xxxviii. 31.

&fist; Alcyone, the brightest of these, a star of the third magnitude, was considered by Mädler the central point around which our universe is revolving, but there is no sufficient evidence of such motion. Only six pleiads are distinctly visible to the naked eye, whence the ancients supposed that a sister had concealed herself out of shame for having loved a mortal, Sisyphus.