martian
/ˈmɑɹʃən/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.39 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of or relating to the planet Mars, or (science fiction) its imagined inhabitants.
adj
Pertaining to the astrological influence of the planet Mars; aggressive, bellicose.
adj
Pertaining to the Roman god Mars, the god of war.
noun
An inhabitant of the planet Mars.
noun
An inhabitant of the planet Mars.
name
A hypothetical language spoken on Mars.
Example Sentences
- "The direct heat of the sun, shining through so thin an atmosphere, must be considerable wherever the sun is at a sufficient elevation; and of course the very tenuity of the air renders vaporization so much the easier, for the boiling point (and consequently all temperatures of evaporation at given rates) would be correspondingly lowered. Accordingly, during the greater part of the Martian day, the hoar frost and whatever light snow might have fallen on the preceding evening would be completely dissolved away, and thus the ruddy earth or the greenish ice-masses of the so-called oceans would be revealed to the terrestral observer."
- "Prof. Percival Lowell, the eminent Martian astronomer, said in a recent interview in New York: "The Martian canals are not Panama canals. The word 'canals' you know, really means 'lines.' [...]""
- "Not wishing to lose this great opportunity of being the first to receive Martian signals, we 'phoned to the manager to come over immediately and verify our "startling" discovery. [...] A day later a lineman in the employ of a stock quotation ticker agency happened to be working on the roof. [...] [H]e suggested that we might possibly be troubled with induction from these wires, and that our lead-in would perhaps be better if it ran along the outside of the building. Troubled with induction! In truth, that was the very thing which we had mistaken for Martian signals."
- "She [Catherine Elise Muller] claimed her astral body was transported to the planet, so she was able to draw detailed Martian landscapes and to speak and write its language."
- "Martian meteorites (Fig. 1.3) are pieces of Mars that have been blasted off the surface, hurtled through space, and delivered to Earth [...]. We know they are from Mars because the noble gases, carbon, and nitrogen measured in shock melt pockets in certain meteorites have the same relative elemental abundances and similar isotopic ratios as the Martian atmosphere—a unique fingerprint [...]."
- "Close to the border with Eritrea, its ethereal, Martian landscape sits within the Danakil Depression."
Etymology
From Latin Mārtius (“of or relating to the planet Mars”) + -an (adjective-forming suffix). The word is cognate with Middle English marcien, marcyan, mercien (“subject to the influence or power of the planet Mars; relating to the god Mars, that is, warlike”), Middle French martien (“Martian”) (modern French martien), French Martien (“imaginary inhabitant of Mars; any extraterrestrial”), Italian marziano, Latin Mārtiānus (“Martian”), Portuguese marciano, Spanish marciano.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈmɑɹʃən/
- British English: /ˈmɑːʃən/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Astronomy.