What does aerolith mean?
An aerolith is a stony meteorite — a solid mass of rock that has travelled through the atmosphere from space and landed on Earth. The word derives from the Greek elements 'aero-' (air) and '-lith' (stone), so it literally means 'air-stone', a name coined at a time when the very idea of stones falling from the sky was scientifically contentious. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as witnessed falls such as L'Aigle in France convinced sceptical scholars that extraterrestrial rocks were real, terms like aerolith and its variant aerolite entered scientific vocabulary. Today the word has largely been superseded by 'meteorite', and it survives mainly in historical texts, older encyclopaedias, and literary usage, where it lends a pleasantly antique tone. Collectors and historians of science may still encounter it in auction catalogues and classic accounts of celebrated meteorite falls.
nounA stone meteorite; a mass of stone or stony matter that has fallen to the earth from outer space.
- A stony meteorite — a rock that has fallen to Earth from space.
- (Historical/rare) Any stone-like substance believed to have fallen from the atmosphere, including in older usage certain atmospheric phenomena or concretions.
"The museum's newest acquisition was an aerolith recovered from the desert after a brilliant fireball lit up the night sky."
"Villagers rushed to the crater where the aerolith had embedded itself in a frozen field."
"Early nineteenth-century naturalists catalogued each reported aerolith with meticulous drawings and chemical analyses."
Standard English plural; occasionally 'aerolites' appears when using the variant form of the word.
"Several small aeroliths were recovered from the strewn field after the daylight fall."
Before scientists settled on 'meteorite', stones falling from the sky were called aeroliths — literally 'air-stones' — because no one could quite believe rocks could rain down from heaven.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of aerolith
Aerolith comes from the Greek 'aēr' meaning air and 'lithos' meaning stone, combined into a term for a stone fallen from the air. It emerged in European scientific writing around the turn of the nineteenth century, when the reality of meteorites was first widely accepted following well-documented falls such as that at L'Aigle, France, in 1803. The closely related variant 'aerolite' became the more standard English form, while 'aerolith' remained a rarer alternative. The '-lith' element ties it to a family of Greek-derived words including monolith, megalith, and lithography.
Related word forms
How aerolith is actually used
A somewhat dated or literary term; modern astronomy and meteoritics overwhelmingly prefer 'meteorite' (or specifically 'stony meteorite' / 'chondrite'). 'Aerolite' is the more common variant spelling of the same concept. The word carries a slightly antiquated, nineteenth-century scientific flavour.
Easily confused with aerolith
An aerolite is the same thing as an aerolith — a stony meteorite — but 'aerolite' is the far more common form in modern scientific usage.
A siderite is an iron meteorite, composed chiefly of iron-nickel, whereas an aerolith is a stony meteorite.