A star is one of many celestial objects that light up the sky at night.
The word star is inherited from Germanic. The original word in Old English appears to have been spelled steorra. It eventually lost its ending -a when moving from Old to Middle English. This is a characteristic of the morphology change between Old to Middle English when several words lost their case endings. In Middle English, there are several variations of spelling, including steorræ, sterre, starre, and our modern day star. The cognates with other Germanic languages are all similar to the Old English spelling.
The stars have been used for a variety of purposes over the years. They are integral to survival in nature, and many wishes have been made upon them.
Stars form in large clouds of molecular gas, then proceed to build up energy. We can see the starlight from a large distance due to the amount of energy built up. When a star can be seen it is collapsing from the built up energy. Dying stars create a gravitational pull, such as the sun does. Astronomy is the study of stars and other things outside the Earth's atmosphere while astrology is the study of the star's effect on the universe, particularly humans. Astrology has many layers, and often looks at the location of the stars and planets during certain times (such as time of birth for a birth chart or date for an astrological sign).
Sources:
“Star, N. (1).” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6949829803.
“Stars - NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, science.nasa.gov/universe/stars/. Accessed 6 Aug. 2024.