Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. In the traditional model of solar systems, a celestial body larger than an asteroid or comet, illuminated by light from a star, such as the sun, around which it revolves.
- n. A celestial body that orbits the sun, has sufficient mass to assume nearly a round shape, clears out dust and debris from the neighborhood around its orbit, and is not a satellite of another planet.
- n. One of the seven celestial bodies, Mercury, Venus, the moon, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, visible to the naked eye and thought by ancient astronomers to revolve in the heavens about a fixed Earth and among fixed stars.
- n. One of the seven revolving astrological celestial bodies that in conjunction with the stars are believed to influence human affairs and personalities.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A star other than a fixed star: a star revolving in an orbit. The sun was formerly considered as a planet, but is now known to be a fixed star. By planet is ordinarily meant a primary planet of the solar system, or body revolving round the sun in a nearly circular orbit. Of these eight are major planets—being, in their order from the sun, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. There are besides about 300 minor planets known. (See
planetoid .) The periodic comets are not regarded as planets. A secondary planet is a satellite, or small body revolving round a primary planet: thus, the moon is a secondary planet. Seesolar system (under solar), gravitation, Kepler's laws under law), and the names of the major planets. - n. Same as planeta
Wiktionary
- n. Each of the seven major bodies which move relative to the fixed stars in the night sky—the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
- n. Any of various rocky or gaseous spherical bodies orbiting the Sun, specifically the eight major bodies of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. (The Galilean moons, four major asteroids, and the dwarf planet Pluto were formerly included, in the 17th, 19th, and 20th centuries respectively.)
- n. Any similar spherically shaped or tidally elongated body in orbit around a star or
binary star which has cleared the debris out of its orbital path, but which has not attained nuclear fusion.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A celestial body which revolves about the sun in an orbit of a moderate degree of eccentricity. It is distinguished from a
comet by the absence of a coma, and by having a less eccentric orbit. See solar system. - n. A star, as influencing the fate of a men.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a person who follows or serves another
- n. any celestial body (other than comets or satellites) that revolves around a star
- n. (astronomy) any of the nine large celestial bodies in the solar system that revolve around the sun and shine by reflected light; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto in order of their proximity to the sun; viewed from the constellation Hercules, all the planets rotate around the sun in a counterclockwise direction
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French planete, from Late Latin planēta, from Greek planētēs, variant of planēs, planēt-, from planāsthai, to wander; see pelə-2 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“In short, no envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; no vice, or meanness, or cheating, or any of the abominations of the planet Terra, and _we come from that planet_.”
“*grumbles sumfin aboat leevin a frozzin planet tu go tu a lava planet* Bye!”
Invisible Tarzan vine - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“The word planet comes from the Greek word πλανήτης (planetes) which is derived from the word”
“Two years ago the International Astronomical Union IAU elected to define the term planet, restricting it to the eight largest bodies orbiting the Sun, and deleting Pluto from the list.”
“But when the International Astronomical Union created its formal definition of the word planet in 2006 - and demoted Pluto by doing it - there was nothing in the fine print about how the object had formed.”
“Some planetary theorists argued that the term "planet" should only apply to the latter, even if two objects have exactly the same mass.”
“These worlds reflect visible light rather than shining in their own right in visible wavelengths, but why should we restrict the definition of the term planet to just those wavelengths that we can see?”
“Our word planet comes from a Greek verb meaning to wander.”
“Change how astronomers define the term planet, eh?”
“Similarly, our planet is our house, and we should maintain it with care, to ensure our happiness and the happiness of our children, of our friends, and of all the sentient beings who share this great dwelling place.”
The Huffington Post: 'My Spiritual Journey,' by The Dalai Lama
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘planet’.
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G[r]eek
A collection of words found in English that are either purely Greek or have Greek etymology.
Please add with caution and certainty. Will be regularly updated by me.etymology, philosophy, laconic, disharmony, patriarchic, archaic, phlogiston, aether, aeon, angel, arachnid, rhythm and 322 more...
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jackgrade2
accident, agree, arrive, astronomy, atlas, attention, award, aware, balance, banner, bare, base and 127 more...
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Nature and Environment
north, east, west, mountain, sea, beach, river, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest, island and 205 more...
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But technically it means...
Words with technical senses resembling but not wholly reflective of vernacular usage, often because of a need for greater precision in some discipline or other.
planet, twilight, substance, zombie, sublime, type, token, natural, life, epidemic, evolution, likelihood and 12 more...

treeseed Planets in astrology have a different meaning to the modern astronomical understanding of what a planet is. Astrology utilises the ancient geocentric model of the universe in its calculations and thus employs the term in its original geocentric sense. Before the age of telescopes, the night sky was observed to consist of two very similar components: fixed stars, which remained motionless in relation to each other, and wandering stars, (in ancient Greek: asteres planetai) which appeared to shift their positions relative to the fixed stars over the course of the year. To the Greeks and the other earliest astronomers, this group comprised the five planets visible to the naked eye and excluded the earth. Although strictly the term "planet" applied only to those five objects, the term was latterly broadened, particularly in the Middle Ages, to include the Sun and the Moon (sometimes referred to as "Lights"), making a total of seven planets. Astrologers retain this definition today.
_Wikipedia Feb 23, 2008
anydelirium '"And yesterday the planet seemed to be going so well..."' -The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams Feb 17, 2008
bilby "What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?" - Henry David Thoreau Dec 10, 2007
seanahan Of course. comet actually comes from the Greek for long-haired star, so they were considered more like stars than planets, although it makes much more sense to think of them as planets, since they orbit the sun. Oct 15, 2007
oroboros And comets, right? Oct 14, 2007
seanahan This makes a lot of sense. Besides the sun and the moon, the planets are the only heavenly bodies which don't follow progress through the ecliptic. Oct 14, 2007
kewpid “Wanderer�? Oct 14, 2007