Venusian

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Connected with the planet Venus or the imagined beings from Venus
2. Pertaining to Venus as a celestial body or the fictional creatures said to live there
3. Describing anything associated with the planet Venus or its supposed native lifeforms

Etymology: Venusian is a plain formation: the English name Venus with the suffix "-ian," which attaches to proper names to mean "relating to" or "belonging to" them. The planet's name comes from Latin "Venus," the goddess of love and beauty, whose name traces back to a very old Indo-European root meaning something like "desire" or "to love." Through Middle English "Venus," the goddess's name became the standard name for the planet, and adding "-ian" gave English a natural way to describe anything connected with it. The suffix itself has a long pedigree. It descends from Latin "-ianus," which was used to form adjectives from personal and place names, so "Venusian" follows the same pattern as words like "Lucretian" or "Machiavellian," both built the same way on a proper name. In Latin the goddess was already the namesake for a range of adjectives, and English simply inherited that habit when it borrowed the suffix through French.

Synonyms: planetary, extraterrestrial