: any of various chiefly fall-blooming leafy-stemmed composite herbs (Aster and closely related genera) with often showy heads containing disk flowers or both disk and ray flowers
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Noun
In late spring and early summer, the meadows are awash with vibrant wildflowers like lupine, Indian paintbrush, and asters.—AFAR Media, 7 July 2025 Combined with hostas in a shade bed, white wood aster will cover dry areas filled with shade tree roots.—Judy Nauseef, Better Homes & Gardens, 24 June 2025 To attract butterflies, consider planting milkweed, verbena and aster.—Clarence Schmidt, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Apr. 2025 Cosmos are members of the aster family (Asteracea), whose members produce disk-like flowers packed with tiny blooms and surrounded by showy ray petals.—Kim Toscano, Southern Living, 15 Apr. 2025 See All Example Sentences for aster
Word History
Etymology
Noun
(sense 1) borrowed from New Latin, genus name, going back to Latin aster-, astēr "a plant, probably Aster amellus," borrowed from Greek aster-, astḗr "star, the plant Aster amellus"; (sense 2) borrowed from Greek aster-, astḗr "star" — more at star entry 1
Noun suffix
Middle English, from Latin, suffix denoting partial resemblance
: a system of microtubules arranged in rays around a centriole at either end of the mitotic or meiotic spindle
The first stage in the formation of the mitotic spindle in a typical animal cell is the appearance of microtubules in a "sunburst" arrangement, or aster, around each centrosome during early prophase.—Gerald Karp, Cell and Molecular Biology: Concepts and Experiments, 6th edition
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