Star
nounA luminous ball of gas in space, seen as a fixed point of light in the night sky.
How to spell star
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce star
What does star mean?
- nounA luminous ball of gas in space, seen as a fixed point of light in the night sky.
- nounA very famous or talented performer, athlete, or public figure.
- verbTo feature as a leading performer in a film, play, or show.
Star in a sentence
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noun
The brightest star in the sky tonight is actually a planet.
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noun
The film star signed autographs for fans outside the cinema.
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verb
The studio wanted a famous actor to star in their new thriller.
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noun
Astronomers measured the distance to a distant star using its light.
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noun
She became a pop star after her first album sold millions.
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verb
She will star alongside several well-known names in the production.
Where does star come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Star descends from the Old English steorra, meaning the bright points of light seen in the night sky. It belongs to a wide Germanic family that includes the Dutch ster and the German Stern, and it reaches even further back to the same ancient Indo-European root that gave Latin its stella and Greek its aster, both meaning 'star'. That shared ancestry is why English words like 'stellar', 'astronomy' and 'asterisk' all carry the idea of a star inside them. The figurative use, calling a brilliant performer or a leading actor a 'star', grew up in the theatre world of the early 1800s, drawing on the long-standing image of a guiding or shining light. The spelling is mercifully plain and has barely changed in centuries, which is why almost nobody trips over it.
How the word is built
- star (from Old English steorra, a celestial body); a single unanalysable root with no prefix or suffix
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