Other forms: stars
A star is one of the points of light in the night sky, and in fact a vast ball of burning gas a very long way off. The Sun is one. That is the sense every other sense grew out of.
It is the five-pointed shape you draw, the mark of quality on a hotel or a review, and a very famous performer — a film star, a rock star, a rising star. The verb follows the last of these: she starred in three films that year. See stars is what happens after a blow to the head.
1nounskyOne of the points of light in the night sky — a huge ball of burning gas.~57%
“The stars were out by the time we reached the top.”
2nounstarThe pointed shape you draw for a bright light in the night sky.~14%
“She drew a star at the top of the page.”
3nounfamousA very famous performer or sportsperson.~29%
“He became a star before he was twenty.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 9 sentences found in the wild and placed 7 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Star has hardly changed in four thousand years. Old English steorra sits on Proto-Germanic sternô and behind that a Proto-Indo-European word for star, and it still means exactly what it meant then.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂eHs-
Middle English
sterre
English, today
star
Built from
From Middle English sterre. From Middle English sterre, from Old English steorra (“star”), from Proto-West Germanic sterrō, variant of sternō, from Proto-Germanic sternô, sternǭ (“star”), from Proto-Indo-European h₂stḗr (“star”). a doublet of aster; related to estoile, étoile, stella, and stelo. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA