nebula
noun
-ˌlī
also nebulas
Did you know?
Nebula comes to us from Latin, where it 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 that caused vision problems. It was first applied to great interstellar clouds of gas and dust in the early 1700s. The adjective nebulous comes from the same Latin root as nebula, and it is considerably older, being first used as a synonym of cloudy or foggy as early as the 1300s. Like nebula, however, this adjective was not used in an astronomical sense until the mid-1600s.
Examples of nebula in a Sentence
Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 4 July 2024
In it, her face floats amid a deep-purple scene of nebulas, galaxies, and planets, along with a headshot of her late father, Jason Johnson, better known as the rapper Camoflauge, hidden among the stars.
—Alex Prewitt, Rolling Stone, 27 June 2024
The agency's panoramic view of the nebula was captured in about an hour and – at the time, at least – displayed an unprecedented sharpness and scale.
—Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY, 1 May 2024
Our newest orbiting observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched in 2021 and is sending back jaw-dropping images of visible and infrared light from galaxies, star-nursery nebulas and supermassive stars.
—Andrea Gawrylewski, Scientific American, 30 May 2024
See all Example Sentences for nebula 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nebula.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Nebula.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nebula. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.
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nebula
noun
Medical Definition
nebula
noun
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