planet

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 28, 2012 is: planet • \PLAN-ut\  • noun 1 : earth -usually used with the 2 : a celestial body held to influence the fate of human beings 3 : a person or thing of great importance : luminary Examples: He dreamed of being a major planet in the literary world, but his books sold poorly and are now out of print. "Nevin wasn't a bad player. He just never did anything for the Astros, ranking just above every person on the planet who never played in the major leagues, with zero home runs and one RBI as an Astro." - From an article by Jerome Solomon in The Houston Chronicle, June 3, 2012 Did you know? "Planet" goes back to ancient Greek "planēt-" (literally, "wanderer"), which is derived from "planasthai," a Greek verb which means "to wander." The name "planet" was originally applied to any of seven visible celestial bodies which appeared to move independently of the fixed stars - the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. In the 17th century, "planet" began to be used specifically of the rocky or gaseous bodies that orbit around the sun - a definition which excluded the moon and, obviously, the sun, but included the Earth and, as they were discovered, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union developed a narrower definition of "planet," effectively demoting Pluto to the status of a "dwarf planet," a celestial body that is spherical and orbits the sun but is not large enough to disturb other objects from its orbit. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.