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Have you ever heard something described as 'meteoric'? For example - 'Susan's promotion to cabinet secretary is the latest step in her meteoric political career.'
What does it mean?
The first definition for 'meteoric' provided by the Oxford American Dictionary, unsurprisingly, is:
of or relating to meteors or meteorites.
It then goes on to define 'meteor' as:
a small body of matter from outer space that enters the earth's atmosphere, becoming incandescent as a result of friction and appearing as a streak of light.
That's all well and good and sounds very fancy, especially the bit about the streak of light. But we all know what happens to a meteor. Either it burns up entirely in the atmosphere or it becomes a 'meteorite', for which the definition is decidedly less exciting:
a meteor that survives its passage through the earth's atmosphere such that part of it strikes the ground. More than 90 percent of meteorites are of rock, while the remainder consist wholly or partly of iron and nickel.
The word 'meteoric' is used most often to describe someone's career. Taken at face value, that would appear to mean it hurtles very fast towards the earth and either burns up before it gets there or hits the ground with a big thud. Yet the writer usually intends its meaning to be quite the opposite.
Most dictionaries do take care to note the figurative meaning, where 'meteoric' by consensus appears to be synonymous with 'rapid'. Indeed, a thesaurus search for 'meteoric' will suggest several similar words such as 'lightning', 'swift' and 'speedy'.
But any of those words fail to specify a direction. The default direction of a meteor is earthwards. Can you have a rapid career? That would suggest it's over quickly. So would lightning, swift and speedy.
It simply makes no sense to say someone has a meteoric career unless you mean it burnt up, hit the ground at great speed or was over in a flash. But below are just a few examples of the phrase as it's used regularly by writers in various publications. Click on an image to see the example in its original context.
The last one is my personal favourite because it's from a career coaching company which proudly promises people a 'meteoric career path'.
On the other hand, you can say someone has had a meteoric rise. Indeed, that is what is usually said. But it's still a little strange. When was the last time you saw a meteor rise?
Perhaps the lesson in all this is that if you're a writer looking for a meteoric career rise, then maybe you should keep your writing down to earth.
The Watch Your Language series is a tongue-in-cheek look at the way we have with words.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
"Meteoric" should be replaced with "super awesome" :p
Well, awesome is from "awe" which is "the power to inspire fear or reverence" - like zillions of words in our language have a different meaning than when they were invented... try "mundane" for example... poor old mundane...