Editor's Corner

In honor of the super moon* that displayed on Cinco de Mayo, today we delve into a series of adjectives based on seven heavenly bodies. This information is from an article by Mark Nichol (“7 Heavenly Bodies as Sources of Adjectives”) from http://www.dailywritingtips.com.

Earth
Though in modern usage our planet’s Latin name, Terra, appears only in science fiction, the adjective terrestrial is often employed to refer to phenomena associated with Earth or with land as opposed to water. It is also the root of extraterrestrial, the term for any (so far conjectural) life-form that does not originate on Earth, or for anything existing or occurring beyond the planet.

Terrestrial also refers to the inner planets of the solar system as a category. (See the next entry for the classification for the outer planets.) It can also mean “mundane,” as does terrene, which has the additional sense of “earthly.” (Terrene is also a noun referring to the planet or its terrain — and that word, like terrarium, also stems from the Latin term terrenum.)

Jupiter
Jovial means “jolly, convivial” — not traits associated with a god normally generally depicted with a stern visage. However, this is the word medieval astrologers used to describe those characteristics, which they ascribed to the influence on [sic] the planet on human behavior. The adjectival form for referring to the god or to the category of gas giants typified by the planet Jupiter is Jovian; this is also the term for referring to the planet’s natural satellites in fact and fiction and to fictional inhabitants.

*A super moon is a full moon that is as close to earth as it gets in a year, and therefore is the biggest and brightest moon…that is, if the May gray sky is not obscuring your view.

Kara Church | Senior Technical Editor

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