Earth & SkyGreek → English
Aerolite
/ˈɛərəlaɪt/noun
A stony meteorite, as opposed to an iron one.
The Greek roots
ἀήρ
aḗr
air, mist
λίθος
líthos
stone
Literally: “air stone”
The story of the word
The word dates from the years around 1800, when the scientific establishment was being forced to accept that stones do fall out of the sky; the shower at L'Aigle in 1803 settled the argument for most of France. Naming them air stones rather than sky stones reflects the old assumption that they condensed in the atmosphere. Modern usage prefers stony meteorite, and aerolite has slipped mostly into older books.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
aerodynamicmonolithlithographyPaleolithic
In a sentence
The museum label still reads aerolite, in the handwriting of whoever catalogued it in 1890.