Nonoutgassing minor planet is a description of course but the word used by scientists and other people familiar with the subject matter is asteroid  Beyond this just because a description is accurate doesnt mean its good  nonsandwich or nonelephant would obvious be correct descriptors but would also be horribly misleading  Its your own conclusion nonoutgassing minor planet is a good or appropriate descriptor  This could even be true its not  whether or not an object is currently active is not the distinction being drawn in the literature of course but its still your own opinion and hijacking Wikipedia to publish your own opinions is still not appropriate   Hijacking Wikipedia Seriously But thank you for finally actually responding Nonelephant is vague whereas nonoutgassing arguably better rephrased to not known to be outgassing is a specific nonvague term used to refer to a characteristic so your comparison does not hold The problem with parrotting specific words for specific instances is that it creates a nonuniformity in the meaning of the words and hence creates unnecessary ambiguity and unnecessarily decreases clarity Now asteroid has always been a word without an exact definition but has come to be increasingly referred to those minor planets out to the orbit of Jupiter see asteroid This is also the agreedupon use on Wikipedia Other minor planets have also occasionally been referred to as asteroid especially those that were discovered early such as  Hidalgo the first minor planet discovered with a semimajor axis beyond Jupiters and asteroid is sometimes also used to include all minor planets including eg all Kuiperbelt objects It is not OR to avoid referring to these as asteroids OR refers to the actual content not the specific terms used nor the specific punctuation of terms see eg this discussion Moreover this term is easily avoided by using morespecific and betterdefined words which increases the informative value to our readers anyway