nebula

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 16, 2024 is: nebula \NEB-yuh-luh\ noun A nebula is a large cloud of interstellar gas or dust. In nontechnical use, the word nebula also refers to a galaxy other than the Milky Way. // We were eventually able to see the nebula through the telescope. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nebula) Examples: "Like clouds, the shapes of our galaxy’s glittery nebulae are sometimes in the eye of the beholder. They can look like all sorts of animals: tarantulas, crabs, a running chicken, and now, a cosmic [koi](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/koi) swimming through space." — Laura Baisas, PopSci.com, 13 June 2024 Did you know? The history of nebula belongs not to the mists of time but to the mists of Latin: in that language nebula means "mist" or "cloud." In its earliest English uses in the 1600s, nebula was chiefly a medical term that could refer either to a cloudy formation in urine or to a cloudy speck or film on the eye. Nebula was first applied to great interstellar clouds of gas and dust in the early 1700s. The adjective [nebulous](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nebulous) comes from the same Latin root as nebula, and it is considerably older, being first used as a synonym of [cloudy](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cloudy) or [foggy](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foggy) as early as the 1300s. Like nebula, this adjective was not used in an astronomical sense until centuries later.