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

This may become particularly relevant when the proximate red giant star known as Betelgeuse, located around 700 light-years away, goes supernova. —Robert Lea, Space.com, 13 June 2025

The festival offers dark-sky stargazing and telescopes to spy on nearby Betelgeuse and Saturn’s rings, all with the stark desertscapes and dramatic silhouettes of Joshua Tree National Park as the backdrop. —Stephanie Vermillion, Outside Online, 30 May 2025

Directly above the belt, the red giant Betelgeuse will shine brightly, looking slightly reddish, while below it blueish Rigel will quickly sink into the horizon. —Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 4 Apr. 2025

One such is the Winter Triangle — formed by Sirius, Betelgeuse and Procyon — that's still visible in the southwest after sunset, but not for long. —Jamie Carter, Forbes, 24 Mar. 2025

Another celestial reminder of Valentine’s is the bright star Betelgeuse, the second-brightest star in the constellation Orion the Hunter. —Mike Lynch, Twin Cities, 9 Feb. 2025

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