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• meteor
  meteor
• meteor.
  meteor.

  abbreviation

  meteorological.

meteor

¹ American  

[mee-tee-er, -awr] / ˈmi ti ər, -ˌɔr /

noun

• meteors
  plural

1. Astronomy.

   1. 

      a meteoroid that has entered the earth's atmosphere.

   2. a transient fiery streak in the sky produced by a meteoroid passing through the earth's atmosphere; a shooting star or bolide.

2. any person or object that moves, progresses, becomes famous, etc., with spectacular speed.

3. (formerly) any atmospheric phenomenon, as hail or a typhoon.

4. Military. Meteor, Britain's first operational jet fighter, a twin-engine aircraft that entered service in 1944.

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meteor. ² American  

abbreviation

1. meteorological.

2. meteorology.

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meteor British  

/ ˈmiːtɪə /

noun

1. a very small meteoroid that has entered the earth's atmosphere. Such objects have speeds approaching 70 kilometres per second

2. Also called: shooting star, falling star. the bright streak of light appearing in the sky due to the incandescence of such a body heated by friction at its surface

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meteor Scientific  

/ mē′tē-ər /

1. A bright trail or streak of light that appears in the night sky when a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere. The friction with the air causes the rock to glow with heat.

2. Also called shooting star

3. A rocky body that produces such light. Most meteors burn up before reaching the Earth's surface.

4. See Note at solar system

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meteor Cultural  

1. A streak of light in the sky, often called a “shooting star,” that occurs when a bit of extraterrestrial matter falls into the atmosphere of the Earth and burns up.

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Usage

What is a meteor? A meteor is space matter that has entered Earth’s atmosphere, as in I was able to see a meteor enter our atmosphere last night through my telescope. A meteor is also the bright, fiery streak that is visible in the sky when a meteor burns up. Meteors are often referred to as shooting stars or falling stars. Simply put, a meteor is a meteoroid that has entered Earth’s atmosphere. A meteoroid is a small body of matter usually composed of dust or rock that travels through outer space. A meteor that reaches Earth’s surface is called a meteorite. Meteor is sometimes used figuratively to mean something that moves or advances at high speed, as in The new rock band was a meteor that shot up the charts. The adjective meteoric describes something involved with or related to a meteor. Meteoric is also used to describe something that resembles a meteor in terms of brightness or speed, as in We were amazed by her meteoric rise to stardom in Hollywood. A large number of meteors traveling through Earth’s surface at one time is called a meteor shower. Example: She took great pictures of last night’s meteor as it zoomed across the sky.

Discover More

Meteor showers occur at regular times during the year.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• meteorlike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• meteors
  plural

Etymology

Origin of meteor

First recorded in 1570–80; from New Latin meteōrum, from Greek metéōron “meteor, a thing in the air,” noun use of neuter of metéōros “raised in the air,” equivalent to met- met- + eōr- (variant stem of aeírein “to raise”) + -os adjective suffix

Explanation

A meteor is a space rock that hits Earth's atmosphere. It's also another word for a shooting star — which is not a star at all, but a streak of light visible in the sky when a meteor burns up in the atmosphere. There are a lot of large objects in space: stars, planets, and moons. There are smaller bodies, too, such as meteoroids — small chunks of rock or metal orbiting the sun. When a meteoroid enters Earth's atmosphere, it becomes a meteor. This word is also used for the streak of light caused when this happens, commonly called a shooting star. Sometimes there are meteor showers, when Earth passes through a trail of space objects that then burn up due to friction with Earth's atmosphere.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

meteor meteor. meteors

For years, the Ames crater was thought to belong to a cluster of major meteor impacts across North America dating to roughly 467.5 million years ago.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 4, 2026

One of the best-known meteor showers of the year is returning to our skies this week, as the Earth passes through debris left behind by Halley's Comet.

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026

About a decade ago, Renne used argon-argon dating to establish precise ages for a meteor impact, major volcanic eruptions in India and the extinction of the dinosaurs.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026

Her daughter would arrive 13 days late, she wrote, “in the face of a solar eclipse and meteor shower,” which places the child’s birth date around Aug. 12.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026

Unaware that the meteor and everything in it would have been vaporized on impact, he wasted a fortune, and the next twenty-six years, cutting tunnels that yielded nothing.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

“In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs — we are the meteor. We are not only in danger — we are the danger. But we are also the solution.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2024

A bolide is the only noisy type of meteor.*

From Time Magazine Archive

This consequence is so dependant, that Fromondus De meteor. l.

From The Discovery of a World in the Moone Or, A Discovrse Tending To Prove That 'Tis Probable There May Be Another Habitable World In That Planet by John Wilkins

Another proof of Athene's connection with storm is the miracle she works when she sets a flame to fly from the head of Diomede or of Achilles,*** or fleets from the sky like a meteor.****

From Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2) by Andrew Lang

Under ideal conditions, around 10 to 20 meteors can be seen each hour at the shower's peak.

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026

As these tiny particles enter Earth's atmosphere at high speed, they heat up and produce the streaks of light we see as meteors.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

The Leonids can travel at about 70km per second as they enter the Earth's atmosphere, making them some of the fastest meteors visible from Earth.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

These meteors are visible all around the world and named because they appear to originate from the constellation Perseus.

From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026

“Just doesn’t feel right,” he told me one night while we sat on the front porch swing watching for meteors.

From "Mississippi Trial, 1955" by Chris Crowe

Related Words

• meteoroid
• shooting star