asteroidian

From Asteroidea +‎ -ian.

asteroidian (comparative more asteroidian, superlative most asteroidian)

1. (zoology) Of or relating to the Asteroidea.
   • 1990, Bernard Ginestet, Saint-Emilion, page 27:

     These are marine asteroidian limestones forming the slopes and the plateau of Saint-Emilion.

   • 2013, W.J., Jr. Adelman, J.M. Arnold, D.L. Gilbert, Squid as Experimental Animals, page 32:

     This response to my innocent enough inquiry caused many in his audience to immediately question the relevance of what, beforehand, had appeared to be a significant elucidation of an aspect of asteroidian biology .

2. Of or pertaining to an asteroid.
   • 1963, Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts - Volume 14, page 341:

     Urey is opposed to this theory and holds the view that the asteroids are of asteroidian origin.

   • 2009, Joseth Moore, Asteropia: Book 2 of the Lunar Series, page 203:

     However, in the end, when the asteroidian security force filed their report, all of the tenants claimed that they had seen nothing.

   • 2021, Bob Freeman, H2LiftShips - Beyond Luna, page 105:

     Quail were often kept as pets, and peacocks are for show and often used as watch-fowl in the enclaves where the wealthy asteroidian denizens lived.

asteroidian (plural asteroidians)

1. A starfish; one of the Asteroidea.
   • 1977, Baseline Report of Environmental Conditions in Deepwater Dumpsite, page 454:

     When considered by contribution to total biomass, the rank order was as follows: Paelopatides gigantea, a holthuroidian; Ophiomusium lymani; Zoroaster fulgens; Echinus affinis; Dyaster insignis, an asteroidian (Table 2) .

2. (science fiction) One who is from or lives on an asteroid.
   • 1932, California Poets: An Anthology of 244 Contemporaries, page 706:

     But you remained conservative, A changeless asteroidian.

   • 2011, Peter Fenves, The Messianic Reduction: Walter Benjamin and the Shape of Time, page 230:

     Whatever else can be said about the world inhabited by Lesabéndio and his fellow asteroidians, this much is certain: their proper names derive from the first sounds they emit, not from a procedure of designation akin to the establishment of technical terms, and the laws governing the waxing and waning of their bodies are unlike those under which the bodies on the surface of the earth fall.

   • 2014, E. Hoffmann Price, Operation Longlife, page 157:

     What gags Flora is that Rod blew the Saturnienne to protect the asteroidians against North American culture , even though that cut him off from one wife, one concubine, and one son.

• “Asteridian”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• eradiations