asteroid

1 of 2

noun

as·​ter·​oid ˈa-stə-ˌrȯid 

1

: any of the small rocky celestial bodies found especially between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter

2

: starfish

asteroidal

ˌa-stə-ˈrȯi-dᵊl 

adjective

asteroid

2 of 2

adjective

1

: resembling a star

asteroid bodies in sporotrichosis

2

: of or resembling a starfish

Examples of asteroid in a Sentence

Noun

Most asteroids are found between Mars and Jupiter.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid collided with Earth, causing a mass extinction that wiped our three-quarters of animal life. —Graeme Green, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Apr. 2024

Active black holes are encircled by intense brightness and billion-degree heat, given off by matter falling toward them—think of the fire of an incoming asteroid—while the black hole itself is unthinkably cold, a tiny fraction of a degree above absolute zero. —Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2024

Complex organic molecules trapped in cold ices can eventually become part of comets or asteroids, which collide with planets and essentially deliver ingredients that could support life. —Ashley Strickland, CNN, 15 Mar. 2024

Japan’s main space exploration effort has been led by the government under JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which has developed various rockets, sent a spacecraft to the moon and brought back asteroid samples for research. —Yuri Kageyama, Quartz, 13 Mar. 2024

Assuming asteroid and intellectual property businesses do fall into place, real estate development will certainly fill out the Martian economy. —Greg Autry, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2024

Analytics did to the pitcher’s complete game what the asteroid did to the dinosaur. —Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Jan. 2024

Share [Findings] The asteroid strike at Yarrabubba may have ended Snowball Earth. —Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harper's Magazine, 27 Mar. 2024

Your self-esteem takes a tumble as the moon and the asteroid Chiron align. —USA TODAY, 12 Mar. 2024

Adjective

But there's little question the dust grains visible immediately after scientists opened the lid to the canister are from asteroid Bennu, where the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured rocks during a touch-and-go landing in 2020. —Stephen Clark, Ars Technica, 26 Sep. 2023

Using the same process to analyze the timing of asteroid impacts in comparison to the timing of extinctions, the team found that the correspondence was weaker, and substantially so without the consideration of the Chicxulub impact in the data. —Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 13 Sep. 2022

On the other end of the spectrum, a massive asteroid impact might create an impact winter that affects the entire planet. —Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 26 Aug. 2022

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully altered the orbit of an asteroid millions of miles away. —Julia Musto, Fox News, 30 Dec. 2022

In a mission straight out of Armageddon, NASA will purposely crash a spaceship into an asteroid Monday evening in the hope of changing its orbit. —Mike Miller, EW.com, 26 Sep. 2022

An asteroid hurtles toward Earth, threatening to end all human life. —Max Zahn, ABC News, 26 Sep. 2022

The recent discovery of an asteroid 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) in diameter suggests that there are still big objects lurking. —Svetla Ben-Itzhak, The Conversation, 20 Sep. 2022

Less than a decade ago, an asteroid 65 feet in size exploded in Earth’s sky, emitting a damaging shockwave. —Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 27 July 2022

Word History

Etymology

Noun

Greek aster-, astḗr "star" + -oid entry 1, probably after Greek asteroeidḗs "starlike, starry"; (sense 2) after New Latin Asteroidea, class name — more at star entry 1

Note: The first use in print of asteroid in its current sense was by the astronomer William herschel, in the paper "Observations on the two lately discovered celestial Bodies," "Read May 6, 1802" (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, for the year MDCCCII, part II [1802], p. 228-29): "With this intention, therefore, I have endeavoured to find out a leading feature in the character of these new stars; and, as planets are distinguished from the fixed stars by their visible change of situation in the zodiac, and comets by their remarkable comas, so the quality in which these objects differ considerably from the two former species, is that they resemble small stars so much as hardly to be distinguished from them, even by very good telescope …From this, their asteroidical appearance, if I may use that expression, therefore, I shall take my name, and call them Asteroids; reserving to myself, however, the liberty of changing that name, if another, more expressive of their nature, should occur." The coinage and reception of this word have been examined in exhaustive detail by Clifford J. Cunningham in "Discovery of the origin of the word asteroid and the related terms asteroidal, planetoid, planetkin, planetule and cometoid," Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia, vol. 20 (2015), pp. 47-62. Cunningham establishes that the word asteroid was suggested by the classicist Charles Burney (1757-1817), through the mediation of his father, the musician and composer Charles Burney (1726-1814), a close friend of William Herschel. Left unanswered, however, and probably unaswerable, is the question of how Burney came upon the word: did he derive it himself, from Greek astḗr "star" and the English suffix -oid, already somewhat productive, or did he consult a Greek dictionary? Note that Greek asteroeidḗs (glossed "sternartig"= "starlike"), not a well-attested word, is entered in Johann Gottlob Schneider's Kritisches griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch (Züllichau/Leipzig, 1797), probably the most comprehensive dictionary that would have been available to Burney. As is clear from Herschel's words, the choice of asteroid was determined by their visual resemblance to stars, however inappropriate it might seem to twenty-first century astronomy. Cunningham points out that planetoid—a better descriptive term, as an asteroid resembles a planet more than a star—was actually used (as Italian and French planetoides) by Giuseppe Piazzi, who spotted Ceres, the first asteroid to be discovered. Independently of Piazzi, planetoid was also arrived at by Henry Brougham, editor of the Edinburgh Review, who acidly criticized Herschel's choice of asteroid: "Why not, for instance, call them Concentric Comets, or Planetary Comets, or Cometary Planets? Or, if a single term must be found, why may we not coin such a phrase as Planetoid or Cometoid?" (Edinburgh Review, January, 1803, p. 430). Whatever its defects, the term asteroid has nonetheless become thoroughly established in astronomy.

Adjective

borrowed from Greek asteroeidḗs "starlike, starry," from aster-, astḗr "star, the plant Aster amellus, starfish" + -oeidēs -oid entry 2 — more at star entry 1

First Known Use

Noun

1802, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Adjective

1824, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing asteroid

• asteroid belt

Kids Definition

asteroid

noun

as·​ter·​oid

ˈas-tə-ˌrȯid

: one of thousands of small rocky bodies between Mars and Jupiter with diameters from a fraction of a kilometer to nearly 800 kilometers

Medical Definition

asteroid

adjective

as·​ter·​oid ˈas-tə-ˌrȯid 

: resembling a star