meteorite

American  

[mee-tee-uh-rahyt] / ˈmi ti əˌraɪt /

noun

• meteorites
  plural

1. a mass of stone or metal that has reached the earth from outer space; a fallen meteoroid.

2. a meteoroid.

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meteorite British  

/ ˌmiːtɪəˈrɪtɪk, ˈmiːtɪəˌraɪt /

noun

1. a rocklike object consisting of the remains of a meteoroid that has fallen on earth. It may be stony (chondrite), iron, or stony iron (pallasite) See chondrite

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meteorite Scientific  

/ mē′tē-ə-rīt′ /

1. A meteor that reaches the Earth's surface because it has not been burned up by friction with the atmosphere. Meteorites are believed to be fragments of comets and asteroids.

2. ◆ Meteorites that consist mostly of silicates are called stony meteorites and are classified as either chondrites or achondrites.

3. ◆ Meteorites that consist mostly of iron are called iron meteorites.

4. ◆ Meteorites that consist of a mixture of silicates and iron are called stony-iron meteorites.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• meteorital
  adjective
• meteoritic
  adjective
• meteoritical
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• meteorites
  plural

Etymology

Origin of meteorite

First recorded in 1815–25; meteor + -ite ¹

Explanation

A meteorite is a rock that falls to earth after a brilliant meteor has passed through the earth's atmosphere. If you've ever seen a shooting star at night, you can call what you're watching zip brightly across the sky a meteor. If that same meteor makes it through the atmosphere of the earth, its fire burns out and it becomes a meteorite, or a random piece of space debris that may have originally come from an asteroid or comet. The Greek root for both meteor and meteorite is ta meteora, "things in heaven above."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

meteorite meteorites

Wearing disposable gloves, he used aluminum foil to collect the meteorite fragments and placed them in glass jars.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

Not long afterward, a meteorite weighing more than two pounds punched through the roof of a home in Hillsborough, New Jersey.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

Every other witnessed CM fall has involved CM2 material, and no CM1 meteorite fall has ever been observed.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

Researchers also detected a broad range of soluble organic compounds in the meteorite.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

On 16 June 1794 a large meteorite exploded over Siena.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

The diversity of those compounds provides further evidence that the Hillsborough material experienced more extensive alteration by water than most other CM-type meteorites.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

That difference was difficult to explain because the Sun and those meteorites formed from the same cloud of gas and dust about 4.6 billion years ago.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026

From about 4.56 billion to 3.5 billion years ago, meteorites, micrometeorites and interplanetary dust particles from asteroids and comets repeatedly struck Earth.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 19, 2026

Previous computer simulations and analyses of meteorites found on Earth have shown that organic material can survive both ejection from a planet and the trip through interplanetary space.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 26, 2026

They’re not going to be watching movies on the couch when I come home or looking for meteorites in the woods.

From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson