extraterrestrial
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ehkstruhterehstreeuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɛkstɹətɚˈɛstɹiəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere
A being originating from outside of the Earth's atmosphere, from space, or from another planet; an alien.
adjective
Originating or located or occurring outside Earth or its atmosphere
Originating from outside of the Earth's atmosphere, from space, or from another planet; alien to Earth or its environment.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere
Used this way, extraterrestrial is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This sense is used where position and measurement matter — travel, weather and flight — so it reads as factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Geography/travel
- Weather/aviation
- Technical/specialist writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use extraterrestrial
- “Is there extraterrestrial life?”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere.
A natural object existing outside the earth and outside the earth's atmosphere.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.