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

Any language described by a → metalanguage. For example, the sentence "In Persian, the word setâré means "star" " is part of a metalanguage (here, English), and the language described (namely Persian) is an object language. Metalanguage and object language may be identical.

→ object; → language.

A place located either at the top of the tube of a large telescope from where one observes or at the back of the tube where instruments are attached to the → Cassegrain focus.

→ observer; → cage.

The lessening in size of the orbit of a binary system composed of two compact objects (pulsars/black holes) due to loss of energy by the system, in particular through gravitational wave radiation. This loss will cause the two objects to approach closer to each other, the orbital period decreases and the binary companions will eventually merge.

→ orbital; shrinkage, from shrink, from M.E. schrinken, O.E. scrincan, from P.Gmc. *skrenkanan (cf. M.Du. schrinken, Swed. skrynka "to shrink."

Darhamkešidegi "shrinking, shriveling," from state noun of < i>darhamkešidé, from darham- "together, in eachother, toward eachother" (For etymology of dar-, → in-; for etymology of ham-, → com-) + kešidé "drawn, shrivelled, wrinkled," from Mod./Mid.Pers. kešidan, kašidan "to draw, protract, trail, drag, carry," dialectal Yaqnavi xaš "to draw," Qomi xaš "streak, stria, mark," Lori kerr "line;" Av. karš- "to draw; to plow," karša- "furrow;" Proto-Iranian *kerš-/*xrah- "to draw, plow;" cf. Skt. kars-, kársati "to pull, drag, plow;" Gk. pelo, pelomai "to move, to bustle;" PIE base k^wels- "to plow;" madâri, → orbital.

Voltage which exceeds the normal value between a conductor and earth.

→ over-; → voltage.

A substance that brings about an → oxidation. Same as → oxidant and → oxidizer.

→ oxide; → -ize; → -ing; → agent.

An act or instance of passing from one place, condition, etc., to another; transit. Same as → transit.

M.E, from O.Fr. passage, from passer "to go by;" originally "a road, passage."

Gozar "passage, transit, passing," from gozaštan "to pass, cross, transit," variant gozâštan "to put, to place, let, allow;" Mid.Pers. widardan, widâštan "to pass, to let pass (by);" O.Pers. vitar- "to pass across," viyatarayam "I put across;" Av. vi-tar- "to pass across," from vi- "apart, away from" (O.Pers. viy- "apart, away;" Av. vi- "apart, away;" cf. Skt. vi- "apart, asunder, away, out;" L. vitare "to avoid, turn aside") + O.Pers./Av. tar- "to cross over;" → trans-.

1) A person of distinction or importance.
2) A dramatic, historical, or fictional → character in a play, story, etc.

M.E. "form, appearance, stature, figure, air, and the like, of a person," from O.Fr. personage "size, stature; a dignitary," from M.L. personagium, from persona, → person.

Tanumsâ, from tanum, → person, + -sâ, contraction of -âsâ, suffix of "form, type, similarity."

A bright cloud-like feature that appears in the vicinity of a sunspot. Plages represent regions of higher temperature and density within the chromosphere. They are particularly visible when photographed through filters passing the spectral light of hydrogen or calcium.

From Fr., from It. piaggia, from L.L. plagia "shore;" noun use of the feminine of plagius "horizontal;" frpm Gk. plagios "slanting, sideways" from plag(os) "side" + -ios adj. suffix.

Plâž, loan from Fr., as above.

The stage of a star before its eruption to become a nova.

→ pre-; → nova; → stage.

A person who is responsible for directing and controlling the work and staff of a project.

→ project; → manager.

The hypothetical and typically extinct language which is believed to be the ancestor of a group of languages of the same family. Historical linguistics uses comparative study of the languages of a family to reconstruct the ancestral language even though in most cases it was never recorded. Some examples are → Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Romance, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, etc.

→ proto-; → language.

A chemical substance that, because of the reactions it causes, is used to detect, measure, or prepare another substance.

From re(act) + → agent.

Vâkonešgar, from vâ-, → re-, + konešgar→ agent.

In an optical system, the image of an object produced by the convergence of the light rays that make up the image. → virtual image; → real object.

→ real; → image.

A substance which removes → oxygen from, or adds → hydrogen, to another substance. In the more general sense, one which loses electrons. Also called → reductant.

→ reduce; → -ing; → agent.

An image that has been upgraded by a process of → image restoration.

Restored, p;p. of restore, → restoration; → image.

Tasvir, → image; bâzsâxté, p.p. of bâzsâxtan, → restoration.

Relating to, or based on, the number 60.

From M.L. sexagesimalis, from L. sexagesimus "sixtieth," from sexaginta "sixty."

Šast-šasti, from Šast, → sixty.

A number system whose base is 60. It originated with the ancient Sumerians around 2000 B.C., was transmitted to the Babylonians, and is still used in modified form for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates.

→ sexagesimal; → system.

An image with clear and distinct details. Opposite of → blurred image.

→ sharp; → image.

1) A deficiency in quantity.
2) The amount of such → deficiency.

From → short + suffix -age.

Kambud, from kam "little, few, deficient, scarce" + bud, from budan, → exist.

An irregular galaxy, the smaller of the two → Magellanic Clouds that are satellites of our own Galaxy, lying in the southern constellation → Tucana about 20 degrees from the → south celestial pole. The SMC covers an area roughly 3 by 5 degrees in dimension and has an overall → visual magnitude about +2.7. The SMC is about 10,000 → light-years in diameter and some 210,000 light-years (61 → kpc) away. It has a visible mass of about 1/50-th that of our Galaxy and 1/10-th of that of the → Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Its → heavy element content is about a factor 5 smaller than that of the Galaxy. The SMC is the third-nearest external galaxy after the → Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy and the LMC.

→ small; → Magellanic; → cloud.