Planet

How to spell planet

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce planet

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does planet mean?

1. nounA large round body in space that orbits a star, such as the Sun.

Planet in a sentence

• Mars is the fourth planet from the sun.

• The telescope let us study every planet in the solar system.

Where does planet come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the ancient Greek planetes, meaning 'wanderer', a shortening of the phrase asteres planetai, the 'wandering stars'. The Greeks gave the name to the bright points of light that drifted against the fixed background of the night sky, in contrast to the stars that held their positions. The verb behind it, planasthai, literally meant 'to wander' or 'to stray', and that same idea of straying lurks in the word's later astronomical sense. Greek passed it into Latin as planeta, and from there it reached English through Old French in the 1300s. The smooth single vowels make 'planet' easy to spell, though the lack of a doubled consonant or an ending occasionally trips writers expecting something fancier.

How the word is built

• planet (from Greek planetes: wanderer); no productive prefix or suffix in the modern form