meteor

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a streak of light produced when a small piece of matter from space enters Earth's atmosphere and becomes intensely hot

   We saw a bright meteor cross the sky during the annual shower.

2. 2
   noun

   historically, any remarkable atmospheric phenomenon, such as lightning, a rainbow, or a shooting star

   Older scientific writers used meteor for many unusual sights in the atmosphere.

Common collocations

• meteor swarm Noun + noun

Via Middle French and Latin meteorum from Greek meteōron ('thing high in the air'), from meteōros ('raised, suspended, lofty'). Meteor once covered many atmospheric phenomena, which survives in meteorology; its ordinary modern astronomical sense is the visible streak, while the body in space is a meteoroid.

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images