giant star
3
6.8
- noun
- /ˈdʒaɪənt stɑr/
- Specialized
- It is thought that most elements heavier than silicon form during giant star explosions known as supernovae.
- a red giant star
- an explosion of a giant star
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Watch on YouTubeWe couldn't see what was causing it, but the gases of the blue giant star were being funneled into an invisible companion and it created a Halo.
- We couldn't see what was causing it, but the gases of the blue giant star were being funneled into an invisible companion and it created a Halo.
- So for a very Big Blue super giant star, it takes months before the quake went up and down.
Examples
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Both newborn stars and dying giant stars give clear indications of their age.
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Planetary nebulae, formed when giant stars throw off their outer layers as they age, are another kind of object that has been recognized in M31.
Academic text (1993) -
The element carbon is made in old red giant stars through the fusion of helium.
Academic text (2004) -
Want to watch the explosion of a giant star, whose mass is as great as forty suns?
Academic text (2006) -
For reasons not yet fully understood, technetium lives in the atmospheres of some red giant stars.
Academic text (2002) -
Much of his research centers around old red-giant stars and globular clusters in the Milky Way.
Academic text (2004) -
Aldebaran, the bull's flaming red eye we now know is an ageing red giant star that's forging carbon, oxygen and nitrogen inside it.
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When stars run out of hydrogen fuel, they swell into bloated giant stars and explode, hurling their atmospheres into space and leaving behind a glowing core of carbon and oxygen.
Academic text (1996) -
The element carbon is made in old red giant stars through the fusion of helium.
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Scientists expect more than 90 percent of these sources to be red giant stars.
Synonyms
27
8.8
A very large bright star near the end of its life
7
7.2
A very large old star with a cool surface and much larger size than the Sun
3
8.5
A very large, bright star much larger than the Sun near the end of its life
1
6.3
A very large, old star that shines bright and red
1
9.6
A very large, very bright star much larger than a supergiant
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'giant' (very large) combined with 'star' (a luminous celestial body) yields a large/very luminous star. This is a straightforward, cross-linguistically common noun+modifier pattern using frequent words, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the intended meaning (even if the term can also refer specifically to a stellar class).
Etymology
Giant star comes from the simple picture of a star that has grown very large and bright. When a star grows bigger near the end of its life it can look like a huge light in the sky, so people put giant and star together to mean a star that is 'very big' and 'very bright'.