satellite
/ˈsætəlaɪ̯t/
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.33 in modern English
Meaning
noun
A man-made apparatus designed to be placed in orbit around a celestial body, generally to relay information, data, etc. to Earth.
noun
A country, state, office, building etc. which is under the jurisdiction, influence, or domination of another body.
noun
An attendant on an important person; a member of someone's retinue, often in a somewhat derogatory sense; a henchman.
Archaic
noun
Satellite TV; reception of television broadcasts via services that use man-made satellite technology.
Colloquial; Uncountable
noun
A grammatical construct that takes various forms and may encode a path of movement, a change of state, or the grammatical aspect. Examples: "a bird flew past"; "she turned on the light".
noun
A very large array of tandemly repeating, non-coding DNA.
Example Sentences
- "The Moon is a natural satellite of the Earth."
- "A spent upper stage is a derelict satellite."
- "At that time they suspected that Triton's frigid temperature might liquefy nitrogen but not be cold enough to freeze it. Thus they had predicted that Neptune's only big satellite—nearly the size of our moon—might be covered by an ocean of nitrogen, interspersed with continents of methane ice."
- "Many telecommunication satellites orbit at 36000km above the equator."
- "A 2025 global survey revealed widespread satellite interference in astrophotography, with 90% of respondents reporting moderate or worse impacts and 97.5% stating that conditions have significantly worsened over the past five years. This interference carries a substantial burden, costing an average of 27 extra minutes of editing per image, and 78% of participants believe a critical threshold exists, estimated at a median of 25,000 satellites, beyond which astrophotography will be irreparably harmed."
- "We read in the Bible, that Nicanor the persecutor of Gods Law[…]sent his Satellites to apprehend the good old man Rasias[…]."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: satellite, satelles