light year

  • 1Light year — Light year, Light year Light year (Astron.) 1. The distance over which light can travel in a year s time in a vacuum, 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers); used as a unit in expressing stellar distances. It is more than 63,000 times as… …

    The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • 2Light-year — Light year, Light year Light year (Astron.) 1. The distance over which light can travel in a year s time in a vacuum, 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers); used as a unit in expressing stellar distances. It is more than 63,000 times as… …

    The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • 3light year — also light year, lightyear, distance light travels in one year, 1888, from LIGHT (Cf. light) (n.) + YEAR (Cf. year) …

    Etymology dictionary

  • 4light year — n 1.) the distance that light travels in one year, about 9,460,000,000,000 kilometres, used for measuring distances between stars ▪ a star 3,000 light years from earth 2.) light years ahead/better etc than sth informal much more advanced, much… …

    Dictionary of contemporary English

  • 5light year — light years 1) N COUNT A light year is the distance that light travels in a year. ...a star system millions of light years away. 2) N COUNT: usu pl, N prep/adv (emphasis) You can say that two things are light years apart to emphasize a very great …

    English dictionary

  • 6light-year — [līt′yir΄] n. 1. Astron. a unit of distance equal to the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year, c. 9,460,000,000,000 km (5,880,000,000,000 mi): abbrev. lt yr or ly: cf. PARSEC 2. a very great distance, amount of time, etc.usually… …

    English World dictionary

  • 7light year — light ,year noun 1. ) count the distance that light travels in a year, used as a unit for measuring distances in space 2. ) light years plural INFORMAL a very long way in time, distance, or quality: Her life in Hollywood was light years away from …

    Usage of the words and phrases in modern English

  • 8light-year — light′ year n. 1) astron. the distance traversed by light in one mean solar year, about 5.88 trillion mi. (9.46 trillion km): used as a unit in measuring stellar distances 2) cvb light years a) a very great distance, esp. in development or… …

    From formal English to slang

  • 9light year — ► NOUN Astronomy ▪ a unit of distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year, 9.4607 x 1012 km (nearly 6 million million miles) …

    English terms dictionary

  • 10Light-year — For other uses, see Light year (disambiguation). Image showing the scale of a light year (outer shell) and a light month (inner shell) surrounding the Sun compared to Comet 1910 A1 s orbit (yellow line) and Comet Hyakutake s orbit (orange line).… …

    Wikipedia