Definitions

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

  • noun A star in the constellation Canis Major, the brightest star in the sky, approximately 8.6 light years distant from Earth.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A very white star, the brightest in the heavens, more than half a magnitude brighter than Canopus, the next brightest; the dog-star. Its magnitude is—1.4. It is situated in the mouth of the Dog.

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

  • noun (Astron.) The Dog Star. See Dog Star.

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

  • proper noun astronomy A bluish-white star in the constellation Canis Major; Alpha (α) Canis Majoris. A vertex of the Winter Triangle and the brightest star in the night sky. It is actually a binary star with a white dwarf companion star.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the brightest star in the sky; in Canis Major

Etymologies

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

[Latin Sīrius, from Greek Seirios, from seirios, burning.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin Sīrius, from Ancient Greek Σείριος (Seirios)

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