English 'heliocentric' from Greek 'hḗlios' (sun) + 'kentrikós' (of the center) — the sun-centered model of the cosmos, associated with Copernicus.
Having or representing the sun as the center, as in the heliocentric model of the solar system where planets orbit the sun.
From Greek 'hḗlios' (ἥλιος, sun) + 'kentrikós' (κεντρικός, of the center, central), from 'kéntron' (κέντρον, center, a sharp point, a goad, the fixed point of a compass), from 'kenteîn' (κεντεῖν, to prick, to sting, to goad). The PIE root for 'sun' is *sóh₂wl̥, one of the most securely reconstructed roots in comparative linguistics, attested across nearly every branch: English 'sun' (via Proto-Germanic *sunnōn), Latin 'sōl' (sun, giving 'solar,' 'solstice,' 'parasol'), Greek 'hḗlios' (with irregular h- from earlier *sāwelios), Sanskrit 'sū́rya' (sun), Welsh 'haul' (sun), Lithuanian 'sáulė' (sun), and Old Church Slavonic 'slŭnĭce' (sun). The term 'heliocentric' was coined to describe the model of Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BCE) and
The element 'helium' was named after the Greek sun god Helios because it was first detected in the sun's spectrum (during an eclipse in 1868) before it was found on Earth. English 'sun' and Greek 'hḗlios' are actually cognates from the same PIE root *sóh₂wl̥ — they look completely different because of thousands of years of sound changes in each branch.