comet
Pronunciation: /ˈkɒmɪt/
The English word “comet” has 3 meanings listed here.
noun
- A small Solar System body consisting mainly of volatile ice, dust and particles of rock whose very eccentric solar orbit periodically brings it close enough to the Sun that the ice vaporises to form an atmosphere, or coma, which may be blown by the solar wind to produce a visible tail.
- A celestial phenomenon with the appearance of such a body.
- Any of several species of hummingbird found in the Andes.
Etymology
From Middle English comete, partly from Old English comēta and partly from Old French comete, both from Latin comētēs, from Ancient Greek κομήτης (komḗtēs, “longhaired”), short for ἀστὴρ κομήτης ([astēr] komētēs, "longhaired [star])" and referring to the tail of a comet, from κόμη (kómē, “hair”). Compare English faxed star and Latin crīnīta stēlla (“comet”, literally “(long) haired star”).
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.