Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A star that suddenly becomes much brighter and then gradually returns to its original brightness over a period of weeks to years.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A ‘new’ or temporary star; a star which makes its appearance suddenly and gradually fades away, the whole decline generally occupying some years and leaving the star still visible in large telescopes. About twenty such stars have thus far been recorded.
Wiktionary
- n. astronomy Any sudden brightening of a previously inconspicuous star.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Astron.) A star which suddenly increases in brightness thousands of times, then fades back to near its original intensity. It may appear as a “new” star if its original brightness was too low for routine observation. A star which suddenly increases in brightness to many millions of times its original intensity is a supernova, and the postulated mechanisms for the increases of brightness of novae and supernovae are different.
WordNet 3.0
Etymologies
- Feminine nominative singular of the Latin adjective novus (new). The feminine is used since the Latin word for star, stella is feminine; thus nova is a shortening of nova stella (new star). (Wiktionary)
- New Latin (stēlla) nova, new (star), nova, feminine of Latin novus, new; see newo- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“(NOH-vuh) In astronomy, the appearance of a new star in the sky (nova is Latin for new).”
“Benelli makes high dollar shotguns and they're the best made in my opinion. the super nova is my answer.”
“Although a nova is much less energetic than a supernova, if recurrent novas are not violent enough to expel more gas than is falling in, mass will accumulate onto the white dwarf star until it passes its Chandrasekhar limit.”
“The lux nova is both Christ and the physical light that filled his new church, and its brightness is a reference to claritas, and so, to its beauty.”
The Theology and Metaphysics of the Gothic Cathedral - part 3
“Hehe there are sane people here in no. va … I think nova is one of the more moderate parts of va ..”
Think Progress » Virginians Buck Far-Right Policies Of McDonnell And Cuccinelli
“While the benneli nova is a damn fine gun in its own respect, and the blackeagles are too, with alot of autoloaders you cant just put any old crap 12 gauge in their and expect it to fire.”
The Gun Nut Survey: A highly biased, unofficial poll of 2,000 readers on all things shooting
“The leading theory of how our sun formed is called the Nebular Hypothesis Tarbuck and Lutgens 1993, 10, When a massive star “dies,” it collapses back upon itself and explodes, becoming what is called a nova.”
“i live in nova Scotia and well it would be pretty hard for me to get across Canada ..”
“What gets me even madder is that mcdonnell gave deeds so much ammo what with his grad school thesis and everything but deeds didn’t take full advantage of that … He also didn’t really “sell” himself here in nova like he should have ..”
Think Progress » Virginians Buck Far-Right Policies Of McDonnell And Cuccinelli
“Last week's term was res nova, which is defined as:”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nova’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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henryar's list
marmoleum, menagerie, cyan, ochre, pilfer, discombobulate, loquacious, iridescent, amethyst, derelict, botulism, equilibrium and 240 more...
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Brand Theft Auto
A marque list for cars--models or companies who've used common words as their name.
explorer, navigator, frontier, mustang, quest, cougar, sidekick, legend, legacy, ranger, voyager, civic and 266 more...
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MUSIC - jazz
Afro, habanera, pentatonic scale, bop, bebop, jazz, cool jazz, pentatonic, malignment, music genre, jazz musician, syncopate and 437 more...
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science fact or fiction
pretty open-ended here—terms, ideas, lingo, technologies and phenomena (real or postulated) that are, were, should be or could be used in speculative fiction
tachyon, mecha, dropship, wetware, meatspace, nanobot, cloned meat, asteroid mining, hyperdrive, wormhole, parallel universe, distributed intel... and 469 more...
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Anagrams of Famous Brands
Armani = airman, Pepsi = pipes, Advil = valid, etc.
pipes, airman, conserve, priest, golfers, farrier, nova, valid, disroot, margin, abhors, porches and 3 more...
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Serendipity's Words
defenestration, mercurial, syzygy, wicked, iniquitous, metastable, demimonde, entropic, ephemeral, irreligious, frisbee, manifold and 474 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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breeze debris
autodidact, hollographic, neurotheology, pensive, grapple, nondual, integral, phantasmagoria, burnished, capacious, ginger, astral and 120 more...
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DYSLEXIC'S DREAD
Words That Make Sense in Reverse Too! Bad news for a dyslexic, 'cause s/he's got no clue if s/he read the word correctly or not, as opposed to a palindrome (i.e., no mistake possible, cf. "Dyslexic...
tool, lever, nap, pool, leer, leek, desserts, strop, doom, ukiah, yaws, ward and 213 more...
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bluemartian's Words
spruiker, adytum, ruminate, exedra, moonglade, spindrift, syzygy, glissade, skysill, pellucid, aquarelle, tatterdemalion and 108 more...
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thricedotted's Words
schadenfreude, vanquish, calumny, obsequious, rhapsody, expostulate, promontory, bordello, quintessence, catharsis, recapitulation, myriad and 937 more...
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ephemerides
being words related to astronomy, stellar cartography, and the music of the spheres, including names of planets, stars and constellations
ephemerides, ascension, declination, apogee, planet, star, constellation, galaxy, system, syzygy, ecliptic, sun and 202 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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the hotlist
short, sweet, epic, catchy, sassy, sexy & sizzling.
( personal list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/...zing, epic, win, fail, hot, warp, times, clip, onyx, wonky, pwn, leet and 1500 more...
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My God, It's Full of Stars!
stellar black hole, micro black hole, black hole, collapsar, hypernova, supernova, nova, variable star, stellar core, strange star, quark star, compact star and 37 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nova.
dontcry mr dontcry has a 1971 Nova in My Garage. He has formed a band of friends, the "Nova Knights" for "Nova Night" - each Friday night in My Garage. They are supposed to be working on rebuilding the old rustbucket -- I mean the classic car... I get the feeling that I will never be able to park My Car in My Garage... *wah* Dec 5, 2009
john A false false friend. From Wikipedia:
"A popular urban legend asserts that the Nova sold poorly in Latin America because the phrase no va means "doesn't go" in Spanish. In reality, if a Spanish-speaking person were to say that his car was not working, he would more likely use the terms no marcha or no funciona, ("does not run" or "does not work/function", respectively) instead, just as an English-speaking person would be more likely to say "this car doesn't work", than say "this car doesn't go." The word nova, as opposed to no va, exists in Spanish with the same meaning as in English. Also, the Spanish word for "new" (nuevo or nueva) is a cognate to nova, which originally meant "new" in Latin." Jan 11, 2008