How to Use orbital in a Sentence

orbital

1 of 2 adjective
  • There are no showers on the orbital lab.
    — Kenna Hughes-Castleberry, Space.com, 16 Sep. 2025
  • But orbital systems make up that cost after the launch phase.
    — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 7 Jan. 2026
  • The idea of orbital space centers itself isn’t new.
    — Sharon Goldman, Fortune, 19 Feb. 2026
  • The orbital fractures were only part of it.
    — Brian Mazique, Forbes.com, 18 June 2026
  • Detailed orbital analyses ruled that out as well.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 22 Feb. 2026
  • The orbital debris is already up there.
    — Leonard David, Space.com, 16 Oct. 2025
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 2 Mar. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 19 Apr. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 14 Apr. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 11 Apr. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 4 Apr. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 2 Apr. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 30 Mar. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 17 Mar. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 14 Mar. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 10 Mar. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 4 Mar. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 27 Feb. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 9 Jan. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 24 Feb. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 1 Jan. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 22 Feb. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 20 Feb. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 16 Feb. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 13 Feb. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 30 Jan. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 12 Jan. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 19 Jan. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 14 Jan. 2026
  • This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 4 Jan. 2026

orbital

2 of 2 noun
  • The long bill is, well, long, and the orbitals revolve around it.
    — The Denver Post, Denver Post, 12 Apr. 2025
  • Light can influence both electron orbitals and spins.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 16 Dec. 2025
  • Some electrons are stored in atomic orbitals that look a bit like dumbbells that are at right angles to each other.
    — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 23 Sep. 2019
  • The teen's lawyer said he was treated for injuries, including a broken orbital.
    — Julia Reinstein, ABC News, 4 Sep. 2024
  • The ideal atoms are ones that have unpaired electrons swarming around the nucleus in what are known as 3d orbitals.
    — Glenn Zorpette, IEEE Spectrum, 29 Apr. 2026
  • For this, the ideal atoms are ones that have unpaired electrons swarming around the nucleus in what are known as 3d orbitals.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 15 Nov. 2023
  • For this, the ideal atoms are ones that have unpaired electrons swarming around the nucleus in what are known as 3d orbitals.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 22 Mar. 2023
  • Norton’s super-rich guy is the orbital of center a colorful cast of characters.
    — Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 21 Dec. 2022
  • These orbitals are not like planetary orbits but rather a kind of volume of influence—they’re sometimes round but have other shapes as well.
    — Chris Lee, ArsTechnica, 9 June 2026
  • The antiprotons will arrive with a lot of energy and end up occupying a distant orbital.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 16 Mar. 2022
  • If that happens, those orbitals are shielded from the Universe by the outermost orbitals, which are full of happy electron pairs.
    — Chris Lee, ArsTechnica, 9 June 2026
  • Even if the orbitals are distorted by the surface and have different energies, the electrons just swap energy with each other as well.
    — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 23 Sep. 2019
  • And those orbitals have an equally specific orientation within the crystal.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 4 Aug. 2023
  • The highest-energy orbitals are generally farther from the central nucleus, exposing them to the rest of the world.
    — Chris Lee, ArsTechnica, 9 June 2026
  • Chemistry is a sort of applied physics, with the behavior of electrons and their orbitals dictating a set of rules for which reactions can take place and what products will remain stable.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 18 July 2018
  • As shared by Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team, Richardson suffered a fractured orbital due to the injury.
    — Evan Massey, MSNBC Newsweek, 12 Oct. 2025
  • There is no in-between state, no variation in frequency as would be expected if the electron was initially located in different points in these orbitals.
    — Quanta Magazine, 10 Mar. 2017
  • Each material shared similar properties but differed in the structure of its electronic orbitals.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 16 Dec. 2025
  • The electrons form a structure, pairing up and filling orbitals from lowest to highest energy, with each orbital requiring a different number of pairs.
    — Chris Lee, ArsTechnica, 9 June 2026
  • With a high-power ultraviolet laser, the scientists excited the electrons of these atoms to Rydberg orbitals far from their atomic nuclei.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 15 Oct. 2023
  • The attack left the victim with a fractured orbital, a broken nose, swelling and bruising to his face, San Diego police spokesperson Mark Herring said.
    — Karen Kucher, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Dec. 2023
  • That annual orbital reckoning also means the same constellations appear in the same part of the sky on the same calendar dates, providing a sense of regularity.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 8 Jan. 2026
  • This pump pulse promoted an electron from a lone pair orbital on the nitrogen atom into an anti-bonding orbital associated with the nitrogen–hydrogen bond.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 17 Jan. 2026
  • But by sending shares of SpaceX orbital, its fans and Wall Street boosters just made what looks like something that could only happen in Musk’s mind all the more likely.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 20 June 2026
  • With pulses that short, observers can harness a free-electron laser to see individual atoms in motion, molecules making and breaking bonds, and even electron orbitals in excitation.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 26 Sep. 2023
  • In a video shared on X (formerly known as Twitter), Gonzalez was captured foul-tipping the ball into his face, fracturing his right orbital, before falling to the ground in pain.
    — Gabrielle Rockson, Peoplemag, 26 Mar. 2024
  • Not mere Center City orbitals, these nonprofit suburban theaters are their own heavenly bodies, with their own individual fields of gravity.
    — John Timpane, Philly.com, 13 Apr. 2018
  • Prior to the invention of the attosecond laser, physicists had no stopwatch precise enough to discern the difference, so many had assumed that the neon atom ejected the electron instantaneously, regardless of the orbital.
    — WIRED, 18 Nov. 2022
  • As researchers discovered decades ago, magnetic strength can be greatly improved by adding to the crystalline lattice atoms with unpaired electrons in the 4f orbital—notably the rare earth elements neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium.
    — Glenn Zorpette, IEEE Spectrum, 29 Apr. 2026
  • Theoretical considerations suggest that electrons from specific orbitals of the atoms within the crystal will be doing the superconducting.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 4 Aug. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'orbital.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: