Sirius
/ˈsɪɹi.əs/ proper noun
- proper noun (astronomy) A telescopic binary star, visually the brightest star in the night sky, a part of the northern constellation of Canis Major (the Greater Dog), one of three stars in the Winter Triangle asterism. Long understood as a single extremely luminous white star, it was associated in ancient Egypt with the Nile flood and in Greek and Roman culture with the "dog days" of summer.
- proper noun (astronomy, specifically) The brightest star of the aforementioned star system; the white main-sequence star Sirius A.
Synonyms
Alpha Canis Majoris Blazing Star Canicula Shira Sopdet Sothis the Dog Star α Canis Majoris α CMa α Canis Majoris A Dog Star
Etymology
From Latin Sīrius, from Ancient Greek Σείριος (Seírios), usually taken from σείριος (seírios, “scorching; scorcher”).
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “Sirius”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details