Sirius

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin Sīrius (“the Dog Star”),^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek Σείριος (Seírios),^[2][3][6][7] usually taken from the adjective of the same form, meaning "scorching, burning",^[1][4][3] and explained as σείριος ἀστήρ (seírios astḗr, “scorching star”).^[8] Etymonline doubts this, because the related words in Greek seem to derive from the star's name, which might be a borrowing from another language reshaped by folk etymology.^[3] Beekes notes that a link with σείω (seíō, “to shake”) assumes an original sense "sparkling, flickering", and that a comparison with the Cretan word τίριος (tírios, “summer”), if correct, could make the word Pre-Greek.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The star: about 1374, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius, “whan þe sterre sirius eschaufeþ hym”.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1325–75.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Greek the name goes back to Hesiod, who also uses it beside the word for star; it was also an epithet of other stars and of the sun, meaning "glowing, burning, desiccating".^[9] In English it has only ever named the star, which Johnson (1755) glossed as "the dogstar".^[10] Wiktionary notes its old association with the Nile flood in Egypt and with the dog days of summer in Greek and Roman culture.^[1] Modern dictionaries describe it as a binary star whose faint companion, Sirius B, is a white dwarf,^[11] and give it the other names Dog Star, Canicula and Sothis, the last being a name from Egypt.^[11][3]

Timeline

• c. 1374 – the brightest star, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[2]

Meanings

Proper noun

1. The brightest star in the night sky, in the constellation Canis Major; the Dog Star.^[11][12][2]

Related words

• siriasis

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster