Orbit, as in eye-socket, comes from the Latin orbita, a rut or wheel-track, which in turn comes from orbis, circular as a wheel or disc. Thus is it not difficult to see how orbita became associated with revolving or rotating. The eye-socket came to be called the orbit in reference to the rotational movements of the eyeball within.

The first use of orbita in an anatomical sense came from a Latin translation of the Arabic texts of Abu Ali Sina (Avicenna), the 11th century Persian anatomist, by the 12th century Italian scholar Gerard of Cremona.