meteoroid
meteoroid Lexical Profile
meteoroid Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A small rocky or metallic body traveling through outer space, significantly smaller than an asteroid and ranging in size from a grain of dust to about one meter wide, which becomes a meteor if it enters a planetary atmosphere.
"The spacecraft's outer shielding was engineered to withstand high-velocity impacts from tiny meteoroids."
Word Nuance & Usage
In astronomy, 'meteoroid', 'meteor', and 'meteorite' refer to the same object at different stages: a 'meteoroid' travels through outer space, a 'meteor' is the streak of light produced when it burns in Earth's atmosphere, and a 'meteorite' is any fragment that survives to hit the ground.
• Rhymes for meteoroid
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Coined in the mid-19th century from 'meteor' (from Ancient Greek 'meteōron', meaning 'thing high up') and the suffix '-oid' (from Ancient Greek '-oeidēs', meaning 'resembling' or 'having the form of').