Earth & SkyGreek → English
Meteorite
/ˈmiːtiəraɪt/noun
A fragment of rock or metal from space that survives its fall and reaches the ground.
The Greek roots
μετά
metá
beyond, among
ἀείρειν
aeírein
to lift, to raise
Literally: “lifted aloft”
The story of the word
μετέωρος means suspended in the air, and τὰ μετέωρα covered everything happening between ground and stars: rain, hail, rainbows, comets. Any of them was a meteor. Only around 1800 did scientists accept that stones genuinely fall out of the sky, and the new word meteorite was cut from the old air-word to name the ones that land. English has it by 1824.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1824
Same family
meteormeteorologymeteoric
In a sentence
The meteorite is mostly iron and nickel, and it is still warm to talk about in that town.