Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One of the meteors in the showers of meteors that appear to originate in the vicinity of the constellation Leo and recurring annually in mid-November.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of the Leonides.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Astron.) One of the shooting stars which constitute the star shower that recurs near the fourteenth of November at intervals of about thirty-three years; -- so called because these shooting stars appear on the heavens to move in lines directed from the constellation Leo.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Each of a shower of meteorites which fall from the area of sky around the constellation Leo in November.
  • proper noun A male given name, a transliteration of a common Russian name.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin Leō, Leōn-, Leo; see Leo.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin leo.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Russian Леонид (Leonid), from Ancient Greek Λεωνίδας. Cognate with the English historical name Leonidas.

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Examples

  • In November, there's something called the Leonid meteor showers, which are often even more spectacular.

    CNN Transcript Aug 11, 2004 2004

  • "Many observers have emphasized that Putin's rule may extend longer than Brezhnev's, and almost as long as Stalin's," he wrote in a research report, referring to Leonid I.

    NYT > Global Home By ANDREW E. KRAMER 2011

  • "Many observers have emphasized that Putin's rule may extend longer than Brezhnev's, and almost as long as Stalin's," he wrote in a research report, referring to Leonid I.

    NYT > Home Page By ANDREW E. KRAMER 2011

  • An ailing Leonid Brezhnev sent troops to Kabul in December 1979.

    Russian military could be drawn back into Afghanistan Simon Tisdall in Brussels 2010

  • At his worst he was in his later years a bit of a crank, obsessed by the danger of nuclear war and, in the pursuit of stability, willing to make concessions to the Soviet gerontocracy of Leonid Brezhnev.

    Uncontainable Alonzo L. Hamby 2011

  • The slower deposit growth is "not a big deal" because the real interest rates Sberbank pays after factoring in inflation are still negative, and deposits are still at a "pretty comfortable" level compared with loans, UralSib Capital analyst Leonid Slipchenko said.

    Sberbank Profit Soars William Mauldin 2011

  • He is one of several critically acclaimed writers, including novelist and political satirist Dmitry Bykov, at the forefront of the movement, along with anticorruption blogger Alexei Navalnyi, rock star Yury Shevchuk, former television presenter Leonid Parfyonov and some veteran leaders of opposition parties.

    Russian Literati Plot Activist Role Alexander Kolyandr 2012

  • "He was supportive of the idea to promote the son and will be instrumental in securing his position," said Leonid Petrov, a Korean specialist at the University of Sydney in Australia.

    In North Korean Photos, a General Trend Emerges Evan Ramstad 2010

  • All this was Havel's way of saying that political extremism—whether of the Leonid Brezhnev, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden variety—would flourish if free people did not actively resist the temptation to acquiesce to it in the name of "peace," or some other go-along-to-get-along slogan.

    Tyranny and Indifference Bret Stephens 2011

  • For a variety of reasons—population size, resources, national motivation—it's unlikely anybody is going to touch Leonid Brezhnev.

    Checking the Strongman Scoreboard 2011

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