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Borrowed from LatinAtlas, from the name of the Ancient Greek mythological figure Ἄτλας(Átlas, “Bearer (of the Heavens)”), from τλῆναι(tlênai, “to suffer”, “to endure”, “to bear”). The sense referring to books of maps comes from the Atlas of Mercator, which he named thus in honor of Atlas, who was supposed to be skillful in astronomy and the doctrine of the sphere. The sense referring to the vertebra reflects that the spine carries the globe of the cranium (the neck carries the head).
(chiefly in anatomy, especially of the human body) A detailed visual conspectus of something of great and multi-faceted complexity, with its elements splayed so as to be presented in as discrete a manner as possible whilst retaining a realistic view of the whole.
1904: Eugène Collin, An Anatomical Atlas of Vegetable Powders Designed as an Aid to the Microscopic Analysis of Powdered Foods and Drugs, main title (J. & A. Churchill)
An Anatomical Atlas of Vegetable Powders Designed as an Aid to the Microscopic Analysis of Powdered Foods and Drugs
1991, Alan C. F. Colchester, David J. Hawkes, editors, Information Processing in Medical Imaging, Springer, →ISBN, page 154:
In addition to classical radiology systems like angiography, CT scanner or MRI have greatly contributed to the improvement of the patient anatomy investigation. Each examination modality still carries its own information and the need to make a synthesis between them is obvious but still makes different problems hard to solve. There is no unique imaging facility which can bring out the whole set of known anatomical structures, brought together in a neuro-anatomical atlas.
Our perception of the body as the natural “space of the origin and distribution of disease”, a space determined by the 'anatomical atlas', is merely one of the various ways in which medicine has formed its “knowledge”.
2003, Isabelle E. Magnin, Functional Imaging and Modeling of the Heart, Springer, →ISBN, page 19:
Finally, Subsol et al. reported on a method for automatically constructing 3D morphometric anatomical atlantes which is based on the extraction of line and point features and their subsequent non-rigid registration.
There are of these glands upon the first vertebra of the neck of the atlas; on which the head turns[…]
2020, Tim Ecott, The Land of Maybe, Short Books, published 2021, page 174:
Ribs and spines show through the thin layer of meat left on the carcase, and, where the head meets the body, the crucial first vertebra – the atlas – is exposed.
1887, Sir William Hedges, Sir Henry Yule, The Diary of William Hedges, Esq.:
I saw ye Taffaties and Atlasses in ye warehouse, and gave directions concerning their severall colours and stripes, ordering Mr. Charnock to use his best endeavours to encrease their quantity; […]
2016, Pius Malekandathil, The Indian Ocean in the Making of Early Modern India, page 53:
Surat was an important port on the west coast of India from where atlases were exported on a large scale […]
From Englishatlas, from the name of the Ancient Greek mythological figure Ἄτλας(Átlas, “Bearer (of the Heavens)”), from τλῆναι(tlênai, “to suffer”, “to endure”, “to bear”).
“atlas”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-02
From Dutchatlas, from LatinAtlas, from the name of the Ancient Greek mythological figure Ἄτλας(Átlas, “Bearer (of the Heavens)”), from τλῆναι(tlênai, “to suffer”, “to endure”, “to bear”).
^ Erwina Burhanuddin, Abdul Gaffar Ruskhan, R.B. Chrismanto (1993) Penelitian kosakata bahasa Arab dalam bahasa Indonesia [Research on Arabic vocabulary in Indonesian], Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, →ISBN, →OCLC