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Shooting star   /ʃˈutɪŋ stɑr/   Listen
Shooting star

noun
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.  Synonym: meteor.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Shooting star" Quotes from Famous Books



... empty vapor 'tis, And days, how swift they are; Swift as an Indian arrow Fly on like a shooting star. ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... flight of these birds was observed in time of war. If the bird flew before them, it was a signal to go on; but if it crossed the path, it was a bad omen, and a sign to retreat. Others saw their village god in the rainbow, others saw him in the shooting star; and in time of war the position of a rainbow and the direction of a shooting star ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... come to make an end of solitude. And so she stood for many years or ages—she could not tell which—trying to fathom the mystery of that great place, and watching the light that streamed from her forehead strike upon the marble floor and pillars, or thread the darkness like a shooting star, only to reveal new depths of blackness beyond those it pierced. At length there came, softly falling from the sky-roof which never stirred to any passing breeze, a flake of snow larger than a dove's wing; but it was blood-red, and in its centre shone a wonderful light that ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... a good many years ago," said Grandpa Martin, "a shooting star, or meteor, fell blazing on the island, and that's how it got ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis

... watched the "shooting star" for some moments without speaking, and then rapidly made his way to ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... seen the stars in the water's gleam, As if its depths were their holy dwelling? We met more beautiful scenes that night, As we slid along in our spirit-car, For we crossed the South Sea, and, ere the light, We doubled Cape Horn on a shooting star. In our way we stooped o'er a moonlit isle, Which the fairies had built in the lonely sea, And the Surf Sprite's brow was bent with a smile, As we gazed through the mist on their revelry. The ripples that swept to the pebbly shore, ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... looked at Chip, intelligence dawning in his face. There was something back of it all, he knew. He had been asleep when the uproar began, and had reached the door only in time to see the creams come down the grade like a daylight shooting star. ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... primal dew ere the sun has lipped the pearl? Have you seen a summer fly, with tinted wings of shifting light, glance in the liquid noontide air? Have you marked a shooting star, or watched a young gazelle at play? Then you have seen nothing fresher, nothing brighter, nothing wilder, nothing lighter, than the girl who stands before you! She was infinitely small, fair, and bright. Her black hair was braided in Madonnas over a brow ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... having the power of exciting attention and feeling, impressive. 4. Mag'pie, a noisy, mischievous bird, common in Europe and America. 12. Van'ished, disappeared. Me'te-or, a shooting star. 13. Con'fi-dent-ly, with trust. 17. Bla-se' (pro. bla-za'), a French word meaning surfeited, rendered incapable further enjoyment. 21. In'va-lid, a ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... QUI FILENT, "shooting stars" (Jan., 1820). This poem is based upon the popular superstition that connects human destinies with the stars, and interprets a shooting star as the passing ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... flight to aerial elasticity and gravitation, by which that astonishing bit of nervous energy can rise and fall almost on the perpendicular, dart from side to side, as if by magic, or, assuming the horizontal position, pass out of sight like a shooting star? Is it not impossible to conceive of all this being done by that rational calculation which enables the rower to row, or the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various

... of a sudden, the way any shooting star does, and shot across the sky in a curving, blue-white streak of fire. I didn't pay much attention, but Doc nearly choked ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee

... glass. Madam Merian says, that at Surinam the light of this fly is so great, that she saw sufficiently well by one of them to paint and finish one of the figures of them in her work on insects. The largest and oldest of them are said to become four inches long, and to shine like a shooting star as they fly, and are thence called Lantern-bearers. The use of this light to the insect itself seems to be that it may not fly against objects in the night; by which contrivance these insects are enabled to procure their sustenance either by night or day, as their wants may require, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin



Words linked to "Shooting star" :   meteor shower, light, fireball, meteor stream, bolide, visible light, meteor, visible radiation



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