supernova

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European*úp
2. Proto-Indo-European*upér
3. Proto-Italic*super
4. Latinsuper
5. Latinsuper-
6. Englishsuper-
7. Proto-Indo-European*nu
8. Proto-Indo-European*néwos
9. Proto-Italic*nowos
10. Latinnovus
11. Englishnova
12. English todaysupernova

From super- (prefix meaning ‘exceptionally large in quantity, excessive; superior in potency or power’) + nova (“sudden brightening of a previously inconspicuous star”), coined by the German astronomer Walter Baade (1893–1960) and the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky (1898–1974) who introduced the term in an astrophysics course and in seminars at the California Institute of Technology in 1931, although it was the Swedish astronomer Knut Lundmark (1889–1958) who first used the word in print in a paper dated 31 December 1932 and published in 1933: see the quotation.

First known use, by meaning

• from 1930s A bright and powerful explosion of a massive star which is sudden but brief, and causes the ejection of most or all of the star's matter and the emission of radiation; afterwards, the star becomes a black hole or a neutron star, or is destroyed.