Lundmark

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A Swedish astronomer who studied distant galaxies and helped advance their classification in the early twentieth century
2. The name of a Swedish scientist who investigated star systems beyond the Milky Way during the 1920s
3. Refers to a Swedish astronomer noted for early research on the nature and classification of spiral and other galaxies

Etymology: "Lundmark" is a Swedish place-name element, and it is the name of a Swedish astronomer. The word comes from Swedish "lund", meaning "grove", combined with "mark", meaning "ground" or "field". The compound therefore describes a piece of land covered by a small wood, the sort of place Swedish farm names commonly record. English borrowed the term from Swedish as the name of Knut Lundmark, the astronomer, and in that use it refers to him rather than to the landscape. The surname carries the original sense of its parts, so the name itself is a description of a grove on the ground, even though the person who bears it has no connection to forests.