Word.ws English Dictionary

starburst

starburst noun: a violent explosion, or the pattern (likened to the shape of a star) supposed to be made by such an explosion.

Noun

starburst (plural starbursts)

  1. A violent explosion, or the pattern (likened to the shape of a star) supposed to be made by such an explosion.
    • […] his arm striking brick and the bottle shattering in a starburst of black […]2002, Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
    • A starburst of red exploded on his chest and he flew backward a good six or seven feet.2003, Tim Cockey, Murder in the Hearse Degree: A Novel
  2. A symbol similar to an asterisk, but with additional rays: ✺.
  3. A region of space with an unusually high rate of star formation.
  4. A period in time during which a region of space experiences an unusually high rate of star formation.
    • The Milky Way will see a starburst in approximately 200,000,000 years.

Verb

starburst (third-person singular simple present starbursts, present participle starbursting, simple past and past participle starbursted)

  1. To experience an unusually high rate of star formation.
  2. To explode; to burst out violently via, or in such a manner as to cause, an explosion.
  3. To make a starburst pattern.
    • The faint light from the sky starbursted on a tear. Suddenly there was something appallingly human about her.1998, Graham Joyce, The Tooth Fairy

starburst meaning in Tamil

starburst in Tamil

மிகைவிண்மீன் வெளி

Forms of starburst

Noun
pluralstarbursts
Verb
third-person singular presentstarbursts
present participlestarbursting
past participlestarbursted
paststarbursted

Plural of starburst: starbursts

Origin of starburst

From star + burst.

Words formed from starburst

Phrases with starburst

Questions about starburst

What does starburst mean?
Starburst means a violent explosion, or the pattern (likened to the shape of a star) supposed to be made by such an explosion.
What is starburst in Tamil?
Starburst in Tamil is மிகைவிண்மீன் வெளி. See Starburst meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is starburst?
Starburst can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of starburst?
The plural of starburst is starbursts.

Words near starburst in the dictionary

  1. starboys
  2. Starbuck
  3. Starbucks
  4. Starbuckses
  5. Starbucksification
  6. starburst
  7. starburst display
  8. starburst displays
  9. starburst galaxies
  10. starburst galaxy
  11. starbursted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: starburst (page history and authors); starburst (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-starburst.wav.

Cite this entry: “starburst.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/starburst. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.