Electrojet

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A concentrated stream of charged particles moving swiftly through the magnetic environment of Earth, affecting various atmospheric phenomena
2. A rapid current of electrically charged particles within the Earth's magnetosphere that plays a role in shaping ionospheric behavior
3. A narrow, fast moving stream of charged particles flowing through Earth's magnetic field and impacting upper atmospheric conditions

Etymology: The second half of this word is the easy part. "Jet" came into English from Old French "get", descended from Vulgar Latin "iectus", the past participle of "iacere", "to throw". So a jet is literally something thrown forward, which is why the word earlier named a spurt of water or gas before it named an aircraft engine. The sense of a fast, directed stream is the one that carried over to the electrical term. The first half comes from Greek. "Ēlektron" was the word for amber, the yellow fossil resin that generates static charge when rubbed, and Latin borrowed it as "electrum". English later used "electro-" as a combining form, which is how "electricity" and many other scientific terms were built from that old word for amber. Put together, "electrojet" is a compound of "electro-" and "jet": a stream of electrically charged particles moving rapidly through a region of the upper atmosphere and magnetosphere.