starry
Americanadjective
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filled, covered with, or illuminated by stars
-
of, like, or relating to a star or stars
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of starry
Middle English word dating back to 1325–75; see origin at star, -y 1
Explanation
Starry things are either full of stars, like the starry night sky, or they look like stars, like the starry white flowers in your garden. An astronaut may have the chance to look out at the starry universe or distant, starry galaxies—and you can do this too, if you have a powerful telescope. The adjective starry almost always describes the night sky, unless a poet describes starry eyes or starry fields of flowers. If someone calls you starry-eyed, they mean that you're unrealistically optimistic.
Vocabulary lists containing starry
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Hardly a night goes by without a few starry performances or a riveting game.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
There’s still plenty to look forward to, including another go at the starry mixed doubles tournament, this one featuring the pairing of Djokovic and women’s No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
D’Angelo’s children introduced the medley, which was set against a backdrop of floor to ceiling windows looking out on a starry sky.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
Highlights of the starry season not listed here include Daniel Radcliffe in “Every Brilliant Thing” and Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson in “The Fear of 13.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
The schoolhouse bell tower was a shape against the starry sky before I knew where we were.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
The unwritten rules: the bigger, the louder, the splashier, the starrier, the better.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025
Mel Brooks, Angela Bassett and film editor Carol Littleton will collect honorary Oscar statuettes at a private, untelevised dinner Tuesday night in Los Angeles that has often been even starrier than the Oscars themselves.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 9, 2024
It’s a tricky line to walk, including starrier U.S. titles without seeming to be pandering.
From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2023
The festival had been starrier then, he thought; he’d interviewed Jon Hamm and Annette Bening, and run into Blythe Danner on the street.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 29, 2023
A wild, desperate, half-savage air had supplanted that ingenuous mien, diffident in its grace, earnest in its diffidence, which had once characterised the young worshipper of Art, the dreaming aspirant after some starrier lore.
From Zanoni by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
Stripped of their starriest player and many trusted associates, they’ve morphed into a tighter outfit that plays unselfish team basketball and relies on every player to shoot, rebound and defend.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 2, 2026
Brazilian director Karim Ainouz's surreal satire "Rosebush Pruning" premiered on Saturday at the Berlin Film Festival with one of the programme's starriest casts portraying an outrageously spoiled and dysfunctional family descending into chaos.
From Barron's ● Feb. 14, 2026
It's the strangest, starriest court case you might not yet have heard of.
From BBC ● Mar. 28, 2023
The soprano — who made her unforgettable Ojai debut 11 years ago while still a student of Dawn Upshaw, that year’s music director — was to have been the festival’s starriest attraction.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2022
May no tears fall, if no tears ever fell, From eyes more dear to me than starriest spheres These many years!
From Poems & Ballads (First Series) by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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