Comet

How to spell comet

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce comet

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does comet mean?

1. nounAn icy body in space that develops a glowing head and long tail when it passes near the sun.

Comet in a sentence

• The comet will be visible from the northern sky next month.

• Astronomers tracked the comet as it swung past the sun.

Where does comet come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek komētēs, which literally meant 'long-haired one' and was used in the phrase aster komētēs, the 'long-haired star'. That image came from the root komē, meaning 'hair of the head', because ancient sky-watchers thought a comet's glowing tail looked like streaming hair. The Greek term passed into Latin as cometa, then into Old French as comete, and English adopted it in the thirteenth century. The hairy tail is still the whole point of the spelling: the single 'm' and the soft ending catch people who expect a doubled consonant, but there is just one 'm', faithfully tracing komē. The same Greek komē for hair also lies behind the rarer word 'coma' used for a cloud of gas around a comet's head.

How the word is built

• comet (from Greek komētēs, 'long-haired star', via Latin cometa); a single unanalysable root in English with no prefix or suffix