as in circling
to travel completely around
the moon orbits the Earth
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Recent Examples of orbiting
The astronauts, known as Crew-11, arrived at the International Space Station in early August and had been expected to stay aboard the orbiting laboratory until late February.
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Denise Chow, NBC news, 10 Jan. 2026
The two planets, roughly four times the size of Earth, were discovered to be orbiting around a millisecond pulsar star named PSR B1257+12, which is 2,300 light-years away.
—Lorenzino Estrada, AZCentral.com, 9 Jan. 2026
This is the first spaceflight for Cardman and Platonov, the fourth trip for Fincke, and the second for Yui, to the orbiting laboratory.
—Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 9 Jan. 2026
The mission, part of the orbiting laboratory’s regular staffing rotation, was expected to conclude no earlier than next month.
—Jackie Wattles, CNN Money, 8 Jan. 2026
Crew-11 is SpaceX's latest astronaut mission to the ISS, which sent Fincke, Cardman, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to the orbiting lab in early August for a six-month stay.
—Josh Dinner, Space.com, 8 Jan. 2026
The four astronauts will lift off from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and spend the first two days orbiting the Earth, testing their life-support systems.
—The Week, TheWeek, 7 Jan. 2026
The budget would preserve NASA missions to Venus, Uranus and the Habitable Worlds Observatory that are meant to search for life on planets orbiting nearby stars, as well as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is slated for launch next year.
—Dan Vergano, Scientific American, 6 Jan. 2026
In addition, a startup called Starcloud successfully launched its first test satellite, outfitted with an Nvidia AI GPU, this past weekend, with the goal of developing its own network orbiting data centers.
—PC Magazine, 4 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for orbiting
Verb
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So instead, to keep costs down and power up, the Starcloud satellite flies what is known as a dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit, circling the planet at a near vertical 83° angle that carries it over the poles and keeps it almost constantly exposed to the sun.—
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Deadline had revealed that both were circling over the past few weeks and Amazon has now said that Isaacs will play Atlas DeMornay, one of the canon roles, and Weaver will be Evelyn Wallis, a mysterious, high-flying woman who is keen to exploit Lara’s talents.—
Verb
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Mariners traversing the bar are urged to exercise extreme caution or stay in port until the threat subsides.—
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Walkers and bikers traversing down the path and a new bridge will see two new pavilions as well as the Athletic Club Boise Stadium, where a new professional soccer team whose name and colors were revealed in 2025 will play.—
Verb
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For two days, Chinese warships and aircraft simulated a blockade of the global chip hub with live-fire exercises encircling the main island, while dozens of rockets struck waters near its northern and eastern ends on Tuesday.—
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Live-fire activities would take place in five maritime and airspace zones encircling the island on Tuesday, according to information released by the command.—
Cite this Entry
“Orbiting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/orbiting. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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