shooting star
18
2.6
- noun
- /ˈʃuːtɪŋ stɑr/
:
estrella fugaz
- Now it's a night of shooting stars against a deep sky filled with luminous worlds.
That's two shooting stars per minute if you get somewhere dark.
- That's two shooting stars per minute if you get somewhere dark.
- We've got a mountain on the bottom, we've got the moon, we've got a shooting star fest in the sky.
- We should have people name the other two if one of them is a shooting star.
Examples
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The last Leonid storm, with thousands of shooting stars per hour, was in 2002.
Blog text (24) -
I knew that to see shooting stars, you had to set your eyes free.
Fiction book (1993) -
As I was looking for shooting stars
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When you see a shooting star...
-
But when I looked into the sky, I saw a shooting star, and then two more.
Fiction book (1998) -
When it is summer, I thought, I will be able to stand here and see shooting stars.
Fiction book (1991) -
Lying on the dock at midnight, he searches the sky for shooting stars.
Fiction book (1996) -
We are all familiar with meteors or "shooting stars," brief flashes of light that streak across the sky.
Academic text (1992) -
Flaming, hissing tiny forms streaked over the thatched huts like shooting stars.
Fiction book (1991) -
On a clear night, I marveled at the shooting star streaking across the sky.
Synonyms
300
4.1
A small rock from space that burns up as a bright streak in the sky
48
4.9
A very bright ball of fire and light seen in the sky after a big explosion
1
9.9
A very bright meteor that may explode in the sky
How Bright
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'shooting' (rapid motion/discharge) with 'star' (night-sky luminous object), so a learner who knows both words can plausibly infer a bright object moving quickly across the sky. However, the specific referent — a meteoroid burning in the atmosphere rather than an actual star — is not predictable from the constituents, so the relation is only partly transparent.
Etymology
The phrase shooting star comes from the bright line that looks like a star suddenly shooting across the sky when a small rock from space burns up in the air. People often make a 'wish' when they see one, and the phrase now means that quick, bright streak in the night sky.