Etymology

asteroid

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Today it means: A naturally occurring solid object, which is smaller than a planet and a dwarf planet, larger than a meteoroid and not a comet, that orbits a star and often has an irregular shape. Full definition →

Ancient Greek ἀστεροειδής
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asteroid · noun1

  1. Ancient Greek · learned borrowing fromἀστεροειδής“starlike”
  2. English todayasteroid

]Introduced by German–British astronomer William Herschel in 1802 upon the suggestion of classical scholar Charles Burney Jr. (1757–1817), the son of music historian Charles Burney, a friend of Herschel's. Probably coined as a learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἀστεροειδής (asteroeidḗs, “starlike”), from ἀστήρ (astḗr, “celestial body”) + -ειδής (-eidḗs, adjective-forming suffix). By surface analysis, aster + -oid.

asteroid · noun2

  1. Ancient Greek · borrowed fromἀστεροειδής
  2. English todayasteroid

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀστεροειδής (asteroeidḗs), from ἀστήρ (astḗr, “star”) + εἶδος (eîdos, “form”). Analyzable as aster- + -oid. Piecewise doublet of etymology 1. Compare also the botanical taxon Asteroideae.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.