Betelgeuse

noun

Be·​tel·​geuse ˈbē-tᵊl-ˌjüs  ˈbe- 

-ˌjüz

: a variable red supergiant star of the first magnitude near the eastern shoulder of Orion

Examples of Betelgeuse in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The familiarity of Betelgeuse to astronomers doesn't mean the star isn't capable of delivering surprises too. — Robert Lea, Space.com, 25 Aug. 2026

Betelgeuse and the Pleiades hung—one billowing, one trembling—out of sight somewhere past the window frame. — Literary Hub, 19 Aug. 2026

Two billion times fainter than Betelgeuse, S301 is only detectable thanks to the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI) in Chile. — Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 19 Aug. 2026

Astronomers observing Betelgeuse in 2024 found hints of a second star, and now a paper published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics strongly supports its existence. — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 14 Aug. 2026

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin Betelgeuze, Betelgeuse, etymologizing reinterpretation of Medieval Latin Beldelgenze (with n mistakenly for u), stemming from a misreading of Arabic yad al-jawzāʼ "hand of Orion"

Note: Among several Arabic names for the reddish variable star in the shoulder of the constellation Orion is yad al-jawzāʼ, "hand (or arm) of Orion," recorded in the Book of Fixed Stars by the 10th-century Persian astronomer ʻAbd al-Raḥman al-Ṣūfī. The word jawzāʼ (perhaps a derivative of jawz "center, middle") was originally a name for Gemini, but applied also to Orion after Arabic astronomy incorporated Ptolemaic star nomenclature. The phrase yad al-jawzāʼ underwent a curious transformation in the Latin edition of the Alfonsine Tables (a set of astronomical tables compiled by order of the Castilian king Alfonso X in ca. 1263-76), printed in Venice by Johannes Lucilius Santritter in 1492: it emerged as Beldelgenze, with n for u, an extraneous l, and, most remarkably, an initial b. The b is likely a misreading as bāʼ of the Arabic letter yāʼ, as the two letters differ only in the number of dots written below them. On the basis of this erroneous name, reproduced in subsequent editions, Joseph Justus scaliger constructed an Arabic form bāṭ al-jawzāʼ, in his transcription betelgevze, with bāṭ translated as Latin axilla "armpit" (in Scaliger's edition of the Astronomicon of Marcus Manilius, Leiden, 1600, p. 482). Ludewig Ideler "corrected" Scaliger's bāṭ to the singular ibṭ "armpit" (in Untersuchungen über den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Sternnamen, Berlin, 1809, p. 223), the basis of an etymology that is still commonly cited. Scaliger's Betelgeuze was taken up in Johann Bayer's Uranographia (Ulm, 1603), an influential star atlas that introduced the naming of stars by Greek or Latin letters followed by the Latin genitive of the constellation name. From this beginning forms of the name Betelgeuse circulated into European vernaculars and beyond Europe. For details see Paul Kunitzsch, Arabische Sternnamen in Europa (Wiesbaden, 1959), pp. 150-51.

First Known Use

1752, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

Betelgeuse

noun

Be·​tel·​geuse ˈbēt-ᵊl-ˌjüs  ˈbet- 

-ˌjüz, 

-ˌjə(r)z

: a red giant star in Orion that changes in brightness