comet
See also: Comet
English
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Comet-Hale-Bopp-29-03-1997_hires_adj.jpg/220px-Comet-Hale-Bopp-29-03-1997_hires_adj.jpg)
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.
Pronunciation
Noun
comet (plural comets)
- (astronomy) A celestial body consisting mainly of ice, dust and gas in a (usually very eccentric) orbit around the Sun and having a "tail" of matter blown back from it by the solar wind as it approaches the Sun.
- A celestial phenomenon with the appearance given by the orbiting celestial body.
- Any of several species of hummingbird found in the Andes.
Synonyms
- faxed star (rare, dialectal)
Derived terms
- Biela's Comet
- cometarium
- cometary
- comet darner (Lua error in Module:taxlink at line 68: Parameter "ver" is not used by this template.)
- cometesimal
- comet-finder
- cometic
- cometless
- cometlike
- cometocentric
- cometography
- cometoid
- cometology
- dead comet
- exocomet
- Halley's Comet
- interstellar comet
- nonperiodic comet
- parabolic comet
- periodical comet
- periodic comet
- short-period comet
- vomit comet
Translations
a celestial body, generally with a tail
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Anagrams
Catalan
Verb
comet
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Latin
Verb
(deprecated template usage) cōmet
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms derived from Ancient Greek
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɒmɪt
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Astronomy
- Min Nan terms with non-redundant manual script codes
- Min Nan terms with redundant script codes
- en:Hummingbirds
- Catalan non-lemma forms
- Catalan verb forms
- Latin non-lemma forms
- Latin verb forms