METEOR • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Meteor

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/mˈitiər/ Listen

noun

Meteor n.

Any phenomenon or appearance in the atmosphere, as clouds, rain, hail, snow, etc. "Hail, an ordinary meteor."

Specif.: A transient luminous body or appearance seen in the atmosphere, or in a more elevated region. "The vaulty top of heaven Figured quite o'er with burning meteors."

A mass of stone or other substance which sometimes falls to the earth from space beyond the moon, burning up from atomospheric friction and creating a brilliant but usually very brief trail of light in the atmosphere; also called a shooting star. Note: The term is especially applied to fireballs, and the masses of stone or other substances which sometimes fall to the earth; also to shooting stars and to ignes fatui. Meteors are often classed as: aerial meteors, winds, tornadoes, etc.; aqueous meteors, rain, hail, snow, dew, etc.; luminous meteors, rainbows, halos, etc.; and igneous meteors, lightning, shooting stars, and the like.

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Etymology of 'Meteor'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Meteor" Quotes from Famous Books

... momentary delay before the answer came. "Captain, we've taken a meteor strike aft, apparently a metallic body. It must have hit us a tremendous wallop because it's set up a rotation. ...

— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer

... little cottage ornee. He gave himself up freely to his new passion. With his comfortable fortune and good connections, the future seemed bright and possible enough as to circumstances. He knew that Argemone felt for him; how much it seemed presumptuous even to speculate, and as yet no golden-visaged meteor had arisen portentous in his amatory zodiac. No rich man had stepped in to snatch, in spite of all his own flocks and herds, at the poor man's own ewe- lamb, and set him barking at all the world, as many a poor lover has ...

— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... majority of the gentry or lairds, and the preachers on one side; and the great Catholic families of Huntly, Morton (the title being now held by a Maxwell), Errol, and Crawford on the other. Bothwell (a sister's son of Mary's Bothwell) flitted meteor-like, more Catholic than anything else, but always plotting to seize James's person; and in this he was backed by the widow of Gowrie and the preachers, and encouraged by Elizabeth. In her fear that James ...

— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... gospel may be divided into two classes. There is the warm, enthusiastic, emotional evangelist, who flashes across the ecclesiastical horizon like a meteor, and creates a temporary "sensation," so to speak, among the dry bones in the valley of vision. Then there is the more steady-going preacher of the Word, who maintains an even pace throughout, turning neither to the right nor to the left—whose ...

— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... nights, and I will cut Sheer through the ebon gates that yet will shut On every set of day; or as a sledge Drawn over snowy plains; where not a hedge Breaks this Aurora's dancing, nothing but The one cold Esquimaux' unlikely hut That swims in the broad moonlight! Lo, a wedge Of the clean meteor hath been brightly driven Right home into the fastness of the north! Anon it quickeneth up into the heaven! And I with it have clomb and spreaded forth Upon the crisp and cooling atmosphere! My soul is all abroad: I cannot find ...

— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

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