An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
English-French-Persian

Consisting of, containing, covered or soaked with water or some other liquid.

O.E. wæt "moist, liquid," related to O.Frisian wēt, O.N. vātr, O.E. wæter "water."

Xis, xês "wet, moist," related to pašang, pašangidan "sprinkle," ultimately from Proto-Ir. *haic- "to pour (out), moisten;" cf. Av. haēc- "to pour (out); to irrigate;" Khotanese häs- "to wet, besprinkle;" Sogd. šync "to pour" (Cheung 2007).

A merger between → gas-rich galaxies. Wet mergers may lead to enhanced star formation, trigger → active galactic nuclei, and transform a → disk galaxy into an → elliptical galaxy. The larger the → redshift, the wetter mergers should be.

→ wet; → merger.