A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)
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First published 1986 (DOST Vol. VI).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Primum mobile. [ME (1256), med. L. (11–12th c.), lit. ‘first moving thing’.] The outermost sphere and prime source of heavenly motion in Ptolemaic astronomy. —1501 Doug. Pal. Hon. 1840.
The air, the fire, all the four elementis The spheiris seuin and primum mobile a1568 Bann. MS 39 b/27.]
[O thow eterne rex altissime … Doun frome thy self vt primum mobile [etc.]