planetary
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Of or about or resembling the physical or orbital characteristics of a planet or the planets.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
planuhtuhreeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈplænətɛɹi
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.
adjective
astronomy
Of or relating to or resembling the physical or orbital characteristics of a planet or the planets
astronomy
Of, or relating to planets, or the orbital motion of planets.
Of, or relating to the whole Earth; global.
Of, or relating to the Earth; terrestrial.
Of or relating to or characteristic of the planet Earth or its inhabitants
of a gear train
Epicyclic.
noun
A planetary nebula.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of or relating to or resembling the physical or orbital characteristics of a planet or the planets
Used this way, planetary is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use planetary
- “Scientists study planetary motion to understand our solar system.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An outer gear that revolves about a central sun gear of an epicyclic train.
One of 12 equal areas into which the zodiac is divided.
A nebula that was once thought to be a star with its planets but is now thought to be a very hot star surrounded by an expanding envelope of ionized gases that emit a fluorescent glow…
One of three empirical laws of planetary motion stated by Johannes Kepler.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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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.