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:
Open’s starry mixed doubles event, but that’s the hope, with the journalist Ben Rothenberg reporting Alcaraz has been planning to compete with none other than Serena Williams.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
The legroom, soft carpet and starry ceiling—a feature borrowed from Rolls-Royce—gave me that pampered feeling luxury carmakers strive for.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 24, 2026
As I ring the doorbell of Maggie O'Farrell's Edinburgh home, I wonder with some trepidation whether the acclaimed novelist might have become a bit starry after the whirlwind few months she's just had.
From BBC ● May 22, 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
Only the expanse of the indifferent, infinite starry sky could contain his ferocious, surging hurt.
From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner
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
But Giannis persisted, honed his skills and eventually had to step in for his starrier brother when, during a key competitive game, Thanasis sustained an injury on the court.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2022
It had a Michigan State star running back who got starrier.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 30, 2021
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 was one of the starriest categories of the night, with Gatiss holding off competition from David Tennant, Andrew Scott, James Norton and Joseph Fiennes.
From BBC ● Apr. 14, 2024
In its way the Super Bowl of Commercials is as much a competition as the game itself, as agencies vie for the biggest, starriest, funniest, most memorable, most meme-able, most flagrantly expensive spot.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2023
From the dome Of starriest Night two blest Immortals come, To bear us spheral-ward to God's own mercy-seat.
From Hesperus and Other Poems and Lyrics by Charles Sangster
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
