Meaning

noun (astronomy) any of the small solid extraterrestrial bodies that hits the earth's atmosphere

noun 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

originFrom Middle French météore, from Old French, from Latin meteorum, from Ancient Greek μετέωρον (metéōron), from μετέωρος (metéōros, “raised from the ground, hanging, lofty”), from μετά (metá, “in the midst of, among, between”) (English meta) + ἀείρω (aeírō, “to lift, to heave, to raise up”). The original sense of “atmospheric phenomenon” gave rise to meteorology, but the meaning of "meteor" is now…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0