cosmos

Etymology 1

From Latinized form of Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos, “order, proper order of the world”).

noun

1. The universe.
   Can you conceive a process by which you, an organic being, are in the same way dissolved into the cosmos, and then by a subtle reversal of the conditions reassembled once more? 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine
   The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries. 1980, Carl Sagan, Cosmos
   In Dr Wetterich’s picture of the cosmos the redshift others attribute to expansion is, rather, the result of the universe putting on weight. If atoms weighed less in the past, he reasons, the light they emitted then would, in keeping with the laws of quantum mechanics, have been less energetic than the light they emit now. 2013-08-24, “A problem of cosmic proportions”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8850
2. An ordered, harmonious whole.
   This simple cell is a cosmos in this respect : it represents the laws of the universe in changes of matter, and clearly exemplifies their workings in the oral cavity. 1890, S.B. Palmer, “Matter and force in the oral cavity”, in The Dental Cosmos, volume XXXII, page 538

Etymology 2

]] From the genus name Cosmos.

noun

1. Any of various mostly Mexican herbs of the genus Cosmos having radiate heads of variously coloured flowers and pinnate leaves.
   COSMOS DIVERSIFOLIUS. (Various-leaved Cosmos.) 1838, George B. Knowles, Frederic Westcott, The Floral Cabinet, and Magazine of Exotic Botany, volume 2, page 3
   It was first described and figured in 1797, by Cavanilles, who called it Cosmos, from the Greek word Kosmos, beautiful ; but this name was afterwards altered by Willdenow to Cosmea, as being more consistent with the rules of botanical nomenclature. 1842, Jane Loudon, Ladies’ Flower-garden of Ornamental Annuals, page 185

Etymology 3

noun

1. plural of cosmo