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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Pleiades \Ple"ia*des\ (?; 277), noun 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; -- called also {the seven sisters}. --Job xxxviii. 31.
Note: Alcyone, the brightest of these, a star of the third magnitude, was considered by M["a]dler the central point around which our universe is revolving, but such a notion has been thoroughly discounted by modern observations. 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. [1913 Webster +PJC]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
Pleiades
noun
1: (Greek mythology) 7 daughters of Atlas and half-sisters of the Hyades; placed among the stars to save them from the pursuit of Orion
2: a star cluster in the constellation Taurus
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
56 Moby Thesaurus words for "Pleiades": Atlantides, Beehive, Cepheid variable, Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, Hyades, Messier catalog, NGC, Napaea, Seven Sisters, absolute magnitude, binary star, black hole, double star, dryad, dwarf star, fixed star, flower nymph, giant star, glen nymph, globular cluster, gravity star, hamadryad, limoniad, magnitude, main sequence star, mass-luminosity law, mountain nymph, neutron star, nova, nymph, nymphet, nymphlin, open cluster, oread, populations, pulsar, quasar, quasi-stellar radio source, radio star, red giant star, relative magnitude, sky atlas, spectrum-luminosity diagram, star, star catalog, star chart, star cloud, star cluster, stellar magnitude, supernova, tree nymph, variable star, vila, white dwarf star, willi, wood nymph
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:
Pleiades Heb. kimah, "a cluster" (Job 9:9; 38:31; Amos 5:8, A.V., "seven stars;" R.V., "Pleiades"), a name given to the cluster of stars seen in the shoulder of the constellation Taurus.
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