venus

noun ! Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about venus at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

1. The second nearest planet to the sun; it is peculiar in that its rotation is slow and retrograde (in the opposite sense of the Earth and all other planets except Uranus); it is visible from Earth as an early `morning star' or an `evening star'.

   before it was known that they were the same object the evening star was called Venus and the morning star was called Lucifer

2. Goddess of love; counterpart of Greek Aphrodite.
3. Type genus of the family Veneridae: genus of edible clams with thick oval shells.