Meteor

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Meteor \Me"te*or\, n. [F. m['e]t['e]ore, Gr. ?, pl. ? things in
     the air, fr. ? high in air, raised off the ground; ? beyond +
     ?, ?, a suspension or hovering in the air, fr. ? to lift,
     raise up.]
     [1913 Webster]
     1. Any phenomenon or appearance in the atmosphere, as clouds,


        rain, hail, snow, etc.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Hail, an ordinary meteor.             --Bp. Hall.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Specif.: A transient luminous body or appearance seen in
        the atmosphere, or in a more elevated region.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The vaulty top of heaven
              Figured quite o'er with burning meteors. --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. A mass of stone or other substance which sometimes falls
        to the earth from space beyond the moon, burning up from
        atomospheric friction and creating a brilliant but usually
        very brief trail of light in the atmosphere; also called a
        {shooting star}.
        [PJC]
  
     Note: The term is especially applied to fireballs, and the
           masses of stone or other substances which sometimes
           fall to the earth; also to shooting stars and to ignes
           fatui. Meteors are often classed as: aerial meteors,
           winds, tornadoes, etc.; aqueous meteors, rain, hail,
           snow, dew, etc.; luminous meteors, rainbows, halos,
           etc.; and igneous meteors, lightning, shooting stars,
           and the like.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  meteor
       n 1: a streak of light in the sky at night that results when a
            meteoroid hits the earth's atmosphere and air friction
            causes the meteoroid to melt or vaporize or explode
            [syn: {shooting star}]
       2: (astronomy) any of the small solid extraterrestrial bodies
          that hits the earth's atmosphere [syn: {meteoroid}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  35 Moby Thesaurus words for "meteor":
     aerolite, asteroids, aurora particles, blackout, bolide, chondrite,
     cosmic dust, cosmic particles, cosmic ray bombardment, fireball,
     intergalactic matter, meteor crater, meteor dust,
     meteor dust impacts, meteor shower, meteor swarm, meteor trail,
     meteor train, meteoric shower, meteorite, meteoroid, meteorolite,
     meteors, micrometeorite, micrometeoroid, radiant, radiant point,
     radiation, shooting star, siderite, siderolite, space bullets,
     tektite, the bends, weightlessness
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  METEOR
       
          A version of COMIT with Lisp-like syntax, written in MIT Lisp
          1.5 for the IBM 7090.  "METEOR - A List Interpreter for String
          Transformation", D.G. Bobrow in The Programming Language LISP
          and its Interpretation, E.D.  and D.G. Bobrow eds, 1964.