Martian
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmɑːʃən/
enpr: märʹshən
ipa: /ˈmɑɹʃən/
rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)ʃən
Forms: form: martian
Etymology: From Latin Mārtius (“of or relating to the planet Mars”) + -an (adjective-forming suffix). The word is cognate with Middle English marcien, marcyan, mercien (“subject to the influence or power of the planet Mars; relating to the god Mars, that is, warlike”), Middle French martien (“Martian”) (modern French martien), French Martien (“imaginary inhabitant of Mars; any extraterrestrial”), Italian marziano, Latin Mārtiānus (“Martian”), Portuguese marciano, Spanish marciano.
Senses: examples: text: The direct heat of the sun, shining through so thin an atmosphere, must be considerable wherever the sun is at a sufficient elevation; and of course the very tenuity of the air renders vaporization so much the easier, for the boiling point (and consequently all temperatures of evaporation at given rates) would be correspondingly lowered. Accordingly, during the greater part of the Martian day, the hoar frost and whatever light snow might have fallen on the preceding evening would be completely dissolved away, and thus the ruddy earth or the greenish ice-masses of the so-called oceans would be revealed to the terrestral observer.
ref: 1873 July, “The Planet Mars: An Essay by a Whewellite”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume XXVIII, number 163, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 96–97:
text: Prof. Percival Lowell, the eminent Martian astronomer, said in a recent interview in New York: "The Martian canals are not Panama canals. The word 'canals' you know, really means 'lines.' [...]"
ref: 1910 September, H[enry] H[aven] Windsor, editor, Popular Mechanics, volume 14, number 3, Chicago, Ill.: Popular Mechanics Co., →OCLC, page 456, column 1:
text: Not wishing to lose this great opportunity of being the first to receive Martian signals, we 'phoned to the manager to come over immediately and verify our "startling" discovery. [...] A day later a lineman in the employ of a stock quotation ticker agency happened to be working on the roof. [...] [H]e suggested that we might possibly be troubled with induction from these wires, and that our lead-in would perhaps be better if it ran along the outside of the building. Troubled with induction! In truth, that was the very thing which we had mistaken for Martian signals.
ref: 1920 October, Austin C. Lescarboura, “Wireless Fakes and Fakers”, in H[ugo] Gernsback, editor, Radio World, volume 2, number 4, New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 217, columns 2–3:
text: She [Catherine Elise Muller] claimed her astral body was transported to the planet, so she was able to draw detailed Martian landscapes and to speak and write its language.
ref: 2004 January 8, Mark Pilkington, “Martian spoken here”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 12 Sep 2014:
text: Martian meteorites (Fig. 1.3) are pieces of Mars that have been blasted off the surface, hurtled through space, and delivered to Earth [...]. We know they are from Mars because the noble gases, carbon, and nitrogen measured in shock melt pockets in certain meteorites have the same relative elemental abundances and similar isotopic ratios as the Martian atmosphere—a unique fingerprint [...].
ref: 2019, Justin Filiberto, Susanne P. Schwenzer, “Introduction to Volatiles in the Martian Crust”, in Justin Filiberto, Susanne P. Schwenzer, editors, Volatiles in the Martian Crust, Amsterdam; Kidlington, Oxford: Elsevier, →ISBN, section 1.1.1 (Martian Meteorites), page 4:
text: Close to the border with Eritrea, its ethereal, Martian landscape sits within the Danakil Depression.
ref: 2025 April 22, Joe Minihane, “24 of the world’s most unusual landscapes”, in CNN:
synonyms: Arean
areo-
glosses: Of or relating to the planet Mars, or (science fiction) its imagined inhabitants.
examples: text: [T]he majority of human beings born under the influence of Mars—the Martians (or "Martials")—are heavily built but physically strong. [...] [T]hey are easily angered, and, for the time being, forget everything in the excess of their violence. The worst Martian type will commit murder before he knows it.
ref: 1901, C. de Saint-Germain, “The Planets”, in Practical Astrology: A Simple Method of Casting Horoscopes: […], Chicago, Ill.: Laird & Lee, publishers, →OCLC, pages 83–84:
topics: astrology
human-sciences
mysticism
philosophy
sciences
synonyms: Martial
glosses: Pertaining to the astrological influence of the planet Mars; aggressive, bellicose.
examples: text: The iudges vvhich thereto ſelected vvere, / Into the Martian field adovvne deſcended, / To deeme this doutfull caſe, for vvhich they all contended.
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 6, page 68:
glosses: Pertaining to battle or war; martial, military.
examples: Near-synonym: Arean
glosses: Pertaining to the Roman god Mars, the god of war.
Derived terms: circum-Martian
Martian blueberry
Martianism
Martianize
Martianness
Martian packet
Martian poetry
Martian spherule
trans-Martian