Description: The term cosmos captures the grandeur of everything and has deep philosophical roots. Although the term cosmos is used synonymously with Universe, they do have subtle differences. Cosmos comes from the Greek word kosmos, which roughly implies harmony or order, and is an all-encompassing term for the ordered arrangement of a system, of which the Universe is a part. Although, it could be argued that the Universe is itself an ordered system, and hence can be referred to as the cosmos. Because ordered systems can to a degree be described by physical laws, the word "cosmos" can be extended to capture the idea of a world that can be explained by physical laws.

Related Terms:

• Cosmology
• Universe

Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher

The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".